Let me forget
by Mikan787
Summary: All the hunters have been invited to another exam and Kurapika finds something he never would have seen coming...
1. Prologue

**_This is set between the chimera ant arc and the election. Let's just say Gon wasn't injured and netero didn't die :P_**

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**x Prologue x**

_All the hunters from the last ten years have been invited to the 10-year exam. It is not compulsory to come but please keep in mind accidents do happen like losing your licence for instance or you name accidently being on the black list but those are just guesses. Don't let it scare you. Hohoho!_

"Oi! That old man is outright threatening isn't he?!"

"Maa maa. It sounds fun."

"Plus you heard what might happen if we don't attend…"

"I guess you're right. Do you think Kurapika will go?"

"I hope so! It's been ages since we've seen him."

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**_A/N: So... yay another fic! I have thought everything through but i haven't wrote anything but this so... uploads are gonna take a while ha ha... kill me now. But on a serious note I have been wanting to write this even when I was in the middle of writing my other fanfic Memories or Hibari Kyoya. I have been really into hunter x hunter recently especially kurapika! So this is basically the same gist (is that a word) as my previous fanfic so OC alert! Anyway I hope I don't diappoint and I hope you guys will like this one too. Please bear with me :)_**


	2. Chapter 1: Reunion x and x Encounter

_**A/N: Well I finally finished the first chapter haha… I'm so sorry. I got super distracted with the school holidays and this game I got back into because my mac was broken plus the chimera ant arc really threw me off. It was awesome but a little intense… anyway again I'm really sorry it took so long there really is no excuse. I'll try and update quicker next time but yeah don't expect too much…**_

_**On a better note if you haven't noticed I've decided to make the chapters longer for this fic! About 5000 words or so per chapter. I feel like it takes some of the (self-made) pressure off so if I don't have to update as much but still make a decent amount of progress. I don't know if that makes sense but it my mind through my logic it does so yeah I'm going with it.**_

**_Ok! So I hope you guys will like this and sooooooo the story… starts… now!_**

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**Chapter 1: Reunion x and x Encounter**

"Wow! That building is so big!"

"Calm down Gon. I'm sure we've got the wrong place like last time. Now where's an unsuspecting, rundown shop…"

"Actually Leorio we're at the right place."

All three turned around at hearing that familiar voice.

"Kurapika!"

"It's been so long!" Gon raced over and hugged him.

"I'm surprised you came."

"Well I don't want to get into any _accidents_."

"Can you believe it's been two years since we passed the hunter exam."

"…Yeah" Kurapika had a solemn look on his face as he remembered everything that has changed since then.

"Ah! Sorry I forgot that-"

"Don't worry about it. I'm just focusing on retrieving all the eyes of my brethren nothing else…"

There was an awkward silence as everyone was remembering their encounter with the Ryodan in York shin. It was not a good memory for any of them especially Kurapika.

"Well it's good to see you move on." Leorio said and put his arm around his friend in an effort to comfort him. But he didn't get the result he wanted as Kurapika brushed him off.

"Thanks but I haven't forgotten about revenge. Collecting the eyes is just more important. Now can we please stop talking about this and go inside?"

"O-Of course!" They all followed Kurapika into the massive building.

"Leorio what were you thinking!" Gon whispered or more like yelled at him when they got inside. He hit him in the arm for emphasis.

"Ow! That hurt you brat!" Kurapika watched as his two rowdy friends went at each other and couldn't help but feel a smile creep its way onto his face. It was nice to see that they haven't changed. It gave him a sense of nostalgia, which made him feel down again at the thought that he might lose them in the future like his clan.

"Don't worry we won't be dying anytime soon." Killua appeared next to him.

"Huh?"

"You were thinking about losing us weren't you? Well don't worry Gon and I aren't weak enough to get killed. I don't know about the old man though."

"I heard that!" Both Killua and him turned around and saw their two friends puffed out on the floor from their fight.

"Thanks Killua. That makes me feel a lot better." He gave him a timid smile. Although it was little creepy how the little silver head knew what he was thinking… could he read minds?

"Hey guys! Did you miss the greatest ninja in the world!" All heads tilted upwards to spot the ninja on the ceiling. Weren't ninjas supposed to keep their identity a secret?

"Hanzo!" Gon jumped up to greet him.

"Hey Gon! I see you can jump higher than ever." He said and jumped down so he would land at the same time as Gon.

"Isn't this nice! It's like a reunion of class 387!"

"Kukuku." Everyone froze as they heard the very creepy laugh and it was even creepier since none of them could see the psychotic magician.

"Aren't you guys forgetting someone?" A flurry of cards flew towards them and when they could open their eyes without fear of their eyes being gouged out guess who appeared in front of them…

"Hisoka!" Everyone shouted in reunion.

"What are you doing here?"

"The same as you guys. I still need my licence for some jobs I had in mind and this is a good chance to see my apples ripen. Kukuku."

Everyone felt a shiver run down their spine at the last part.

"…Is my brother with you?" Killua asked quietly as he cautiously scanned the entire room for Illumi.

"Unfortunately no. He said it was a waste of time and that he would just kill anyone who gets in his way."

Killua gave out a sigh of relief at hearing that. "…That sounds like him."

"Eh hem. Well not including Killua's brother… now it's like-"

"Don't forget about Pokkle..." Hanzo interrupted.

All of them decided to give him a moment of silence… except for Hisoka but he was still quiet.

"Just goes to show how much things can change in two years…" Kurapika had meant to say it only to himself but everyone ended up hearing it.

And more gloom…

"Come on guys! Don't be sad! This is supposed to be a happy time! Reunion yay!" To everyone's surprise it was Killua who tried to cheer them up. "A lot of good things happened as well you know!"

"KILLUA'S RIGHT! DON'T FORGET THE GOOD THINGS LIKE LEARNING NEN AND GETTING STRONGER AND-"

"Leorio! I think everyone's good now and we're attracting a lot of attention from the others here."

Leorio piped down and looked around the room and just like Kurapika said a lot of eyes were on them and the faces they were on did not look happy.

"Getting all excited over just learning nen."

"They must have just past last year."

"I bet they only know the basics."

The whole room was now filled with mocking laughter. Really they were starting to look like a bunch of schoolyard bullies. It's better to ignore them but it seems the rest of them weren't going to let those comments slide like Kurapika.

"Let's show them who just knows the basics."

Hisoka decided to make the first move and threw a razor sharp card at one of the offenders or an innocent bystander either way there was going to be a bloodbath. But to everyone's surprise a teenage girl intervened before any blood could be spilled. She caught card in between her index finger and middle finger.

"You guys are acting like a bunch of school kids!" The anonymous girl shouted and threw the card on the ground. "We're all hunters here who cares who passed the exams first the fact remains that one of them could be super strong you never know!" Everyone in the room just stared at her as she ranted on about how strength comes to those who try hard. Nobody was really listening they were only curious about the person brave or stupid enough to interrupt a fight between hunters then lecture them afterwards and it wasn't a shock that they were. The person was a girl that looked about 15, she wearing pretty casual clothes for someone taking part in the exam. But it was apparent she was a hunter the way she caught Hisoka's card so easily. She wearing a plain, white T-shirt, black skirt, a pink hoodie with sleeves long enough to cover part of her hands, black, thigh high socks and black, ankle high boots. She was what you would call a typical teenage girl that people would consider cute and want to date. She really didn't look like hunter material but hunters then again you can't really judge hunters by appearance just look at him.

"Ok I think they got the point." A girl around the same age was dragging her out of the circle that was made when people had gotten closer to take a closer look.

"Maya let go! I'm not finished yet!"

"Yeah, yeah." People had parted to let them through since they didn't want to get kicked by the girl thrashing while her friend drags her away.

"That was weird…"

"Looks like I found another apple kukuku."

A sweat drop ran down everyone's face at Hisoka's comment. '_Good luck little girl.'_

"I feel like I've seen that girl before."

"Eh? Kurapika you have?"

"…Yeah"

"Oh! I know where you might've seen her!" All heads turn to Hanzo.

"Where?"

"On TV! She looks a lot like the world famous idol Sakura-chan!"

"Wow Hanzo you seem really excited about this."

"Of course I am! She's originally from Japan!"

"So you think that was her?"

"No mistake! Her hair is normally up when she's performing and I never thought she would be a hunter but the pink hair and pink eyes, it's definitely her!" Hanzo's eyes lit up and looked almost like they were on fire.

"Um ok… anyway Kurapika I didn't think you were into that kind of thing."

"I'm not. But that does kind of explain why I thought she looked familiar… I could've seen her when I was travelling." Although he came to accept that conclusion something still didn't feel right… it felt like he was forgetting something really important…

"I'm going ask for an autograph!" The sudden outburst cut his train of thought. It came from Hanzo who somehow got out a notepad and pen from somewhere…

"An autograph from an idol… I could sell that!" With that thought in mind Leorio was on board as well. Seriously does that guy ever change? Both of them were heading towards the direction where Sakura disappeared but before they could even take a step the microphone came on.

"Testing 1, 2… Ok." Everyone focused their attention on the TV and as expected it was Beans who was addressing them. "Thank you all for coming." Like anyone had a real choice. "We will now commence the hunter 10-year exam. Please step into the main hall when the doors open." Just like he said the huge double doors opposite of the doors they came in from. Everyone filed into the room silently since no one knew what was going to happen once they walked through the door. Nen auras can be felt all around, spiking up or calmly surrounding their users for protection. Nothing happened as the gang walked through but as soon as the last person entered the door slammed shut and those like Kurapika who were on high alert had activated gyou and saw nen climbing up the walls and start covering the ceiling. The whole room was shaking so hard it was like a massive earthquake was occurring in the room. No one was shouting 'what's going on' or anything though. There was some looking around but other than that everyone seemed calm and ready to take on whatever was coming. Well it was to be expected. Everyone in the room was a professional hunter or by title only anyway…

"What's going on?!" Trust Leorio to break the silence.

"Calm down Leorio. This is a hunter exam remember and one where everyone is already a hunter. Unexpected things are bound to happen." Kurapika attempted to calm down his friend who was freaking out. Really how on Earth is this guy considered a professional hunter?

"Kurapika's right so stop acting like a scared little girl you're making us look bad."

"Who're you calling a scared little girl?!"

"Who do you think?"

"I'll show you who's the scared little girl-"

"Why is it that when someone needs to be called a coward the term little _girl _is used? What's wrong with calling someone a scared little boy?" A different voice interrupted the argument. It sounded familiar where did he hear that voice again.

"Ah you're!" Gon exclaimed and pointed at the source. All heads turned to the direction their friend was pointing in and standing there was none other than the girl who caused the scene earlier, her friend who dragged her away and was currently fuming and a boy who was probably their other friend.

"It's you! Can I get your autograph?" Hanzo pushed past her friend and presented her with the notepad and pen he got out earlier.

"Huh?"

"You're the world famous idol Sakura-chan right?" Hanzo questioned her eagerly.

"Pff! What? Of course not! I just… happen to look a lot like her! Haha…" Wow this girl was not good at lying…

Hanzo was about to say something back but before he could her friend showed up in between them and pushed him away from her.

"Back up buster!" It was the same one that dragged her away last time.

"Who are you?" Hanzo questioned her looking really annoyed seeing she was in the way of him and his idol.

"The name's Maya and I don't like the way you're treating my friend." She glared.

"What! I was just asking for an autograph." He glared right back at her.

"Exactly! She's a hunter now not an idol so treat her like one."

"Maya you just gave me away!" Actually you gave yourself away first…

"Come on. Just one please!" He turned back to Sakura and was shoving the pen and pad in her face while she was politely turning him down. At some point Leorio had joined in.

"I think you guys should stop bothering her. Sorry they're not exactly what you call professionals."

She turned her attention away from the two to Kurapika.

"It's ok. I'm kinda used to it."

She escaped from the huddle Hanzo and Leorio had created around her and walked up to Kurapika. When she came up to him she just stared at him without saying anything. He figured she was staring at his tribal outfit. It's not exactly what you call stylish but it was a symbol of his clan so he was proud to wear it. But after a while he noticed that she wasn't looking at his outfit but rather him. She was staring right into his eyes. Kurapika tried to read what she might be thinking but her facial expression wasn't giving away anything. Her lips were set in a straight line and her eyes were devoid of any emotion. It looked like she was waiting for him to do something but he didn't know what.

"Um… so I'm Kurapika and you're… Sakura right?" That seemed to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. The light came back into her eyes but she still stared at him a little bit more before blinking once, twice then smiling.

"Yeah." Her smile was forced but Kurapika didn't notice. What Kurapika did notice though was that Hanzo and Leorio was still at the same spot asking for an autograph… but she's with him at the moment. Did they not know she was gone? She noticed Kurapika looking toward the direction of the two and decided to answer his unspoken question.

"Oh don't worry they haven't gone crazy. I made a copy of myself to stand there so they wouldn't notice I was gone." She snapped her fingers and the two crazed fans, well for Leorio it's greedy, seemed to finally notice she wasn't there anymore.

"What happened?!"

"She just turned into a bunch cherry blossom petals!"

Hearing the outbursts Kurapika looked over to the spot he assumed she was standing and just like Hanzo pointed out all that was there was a pile of pink flower petals or cherry blossom petals as Hanzo had mentioned.

"It's easier for me to make something if I make it out of cherry blossoms than if I just make it straight out of thin air. I like to picture of the thing I want to create as a jigsaw puzzle and the petals are the pieces. " To demonstrate her theory she held out her hand and petals swirled around above the palm of her hand. The petals slowly started to come together. Kurapika could see how this process could be seen as a jigsaw puzzle. The petals had turned into the gears and pieces into were placed in the right places, well he's assuming since he didn't exactly know the total make up of a gun. After all the little pieces were put together the petals swirled around them to create the metal features that cover the inner workings of the gun so now it actually looks like a gun instead of a cluster of random mechanical pieces. The completed gun plopped down onto the palm of her hand.

"For the record it doesn't actually take that long for me to make something but I just wanted to show you the process in slow mode so you'd get it." She informed him while she twirled the gun in her hand.

"But doesn't it waste more time and energy if you do it this way?"

"I guess it does but I have to for the things I make to come out right. See I need too make all the parts and know where they're supposed to go so it works."

"Wow…but-" Before Kurapika could even

"It's my ability so butt out!" She puffed out her cheeks and glared at Kurapika although it wasn't very intimidating… until she pointed the gun at him.

*Bang!*

There wasn't a click before the bullet was fired so it really caught him off guard. He didn't have time to react but luckily she wasn't actually aiming to hit him or she was just a bad shot and the bullet zipped past the side of Kurapika's head cutting only a few strands of hair.

"What are you doing?! You could've killed me?!" To say the least Kurapika was stunned at the sudden act of violence.

"That's what you get for doubting me." She answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world before blowing the smoke off the gun.

"By the way one of the perks of making your own weapon is that you can tweak it here and there to make it better. Bam!" She straightened her right arm and dropped the gun, which turned back into a pile of petals once it hit the ground before disappearing completely. She had a smug look on her face but then a friend tapped her on the shoulder.

"Um… Sakura?"

"Yeah?"

"I think you hit somebody…"

"Pff I did… not." She did. Apparently she didn't think about the people behind Kurapika and she probably should have because now there was a person lying on the floor groaning with a huge burn mark on their chest.

"…"

"That wasn't a normal bullet was it?"

"No it was not."

"And you shot that near my face!"

"Well to be fair you're not the first person to annoy me…"

Before Kurapika could lecture her on how dangerous that is not only to others but herself as well a speaker went off.

"Congratulations!" At the same time the announcement started a hole under appeared only under Sakura.

"Uh… oh. Ahh!" She dropped down into the hole and as soon as she was through it closed back up.

"Sakura!" Maya yelled after her friend. Not getting any response she gathered her nen to her right fist and punched the floor where Sakura had fallen through. The ground shattered and Maya was preparing to hit the floor again this time with her left fist but the floor seemed to be regenerating itself. All the broken pieces were going back to the hole Maya had created and was fixed completely before her other fist made contact. However that didn't stop her from pounding the floor in over and over again even though the floor kept regenerating again and again after each blow.

"Maya stop it! You're just wasting your time and energy!" Chase tried to hold her back and stop her from hurting herself.

"Chase let go! Didn't you just see what happened? I have to go save her!" Maya tried to struggle out of his grip.

"She doesn't… need…. saving!" Chase tried to tell her but it was really hard when the person you were trying to reason with was trying to punch your head off.

"What do you mean?" Maya stopped struggling to listen what possible explanation Chase could have to support his statement.

Once Chase was sure that she wouldn't go berserk on the floor again. He pointed at the guy Sakura had accidently shot. Unlike last time the guy was just lying silently and unmoving on the floor.

"What about him?"

"Think about it. Before he was still moving but then you guys looked away because when Sakura and um… that guy." Chase pointed at Kurapika.

_'That guy?' _Kurapika was a little annoyed at the lack of manners but being the mature man he was he decided to… steal the guys thunder.

"The guy lost consciousness at the same time the announcement started and Sakura fell down the hole."

"…Right." To say the least Chase was not all that happy that Kurapika took his moment away from him but since he too was …mature he brushed it off with a smile and Kurapika smiled back as well. Although it was very clear that both of them were shooting daggers at each other even under a facade of smiles.

"…So basically the hole appearing under her and taking her away was a good thing because it means she passed the first phase." During their 'staring contest' Killua seemed to have grasped what they were saying and decided to steal the moment away from both of them.

"Hey I was going to tell them!" Kurapika and Chase yelled in union. Killua just put on his cat face and back at them.

_'Smart people.' _Was Maya's only thought as she watched the two sulk. She could never understand why some people make it their life goal to look smarter than another pushing aside the fact that she was a little annoyed she didn't realise it herself. _'But I was distracted! My best friend fell down a hole!' _If anyone asks that's what she was going with.

While the group were talking and arguing amongst themselves they forgot that they were in a room with other people and that those people had overheard them… The whole room had already become a battlefield. Everyone in the room seemed to have figured out that the exam had already started and were aiming to pass the first phase. Auras went off like crazy all around no one was planning to play around… well except a certain creepy magician. They watched as he crept up on his unsuspecting preys and cut off one of their heads clean off with a card. Poor guy never saw it coming. He was about to proceed with the others but the same thing happened. Like what happened with Sakura a hole appeared under Hisoka and it looks like this wasn't an ordinary hole. Unlike Sakura who just let the hole swallow her up, Hisoka tried to avoid it by using attaching his bungee gum to a wall and pulling himself out of the way. What he didn't expect was the hole actually trying to suck him in and even Hisoka had a hard time getting free. Deciding that it wasn't worth the effort he deactivated his bungee gum and let the hole swallow him up with an "Oh well~" and that freaky smile of his plastered on his face.

"What just happened?" Leorio was the one to break the silence, as everyone was still stunned at what they had witnessed. They weren't so much stunned at the headless guy lying on the floor but at the fact that Hisoka was swallowed up by the hole.

"The hole must be there so people can't take out more than one person." Kurapika answered before Chase had the chance then turned to him and smirked. Chase was going to retort but seeing this Maya hit him over the head.

"We don't have time for your stupid rivalry! We're going to have to fight each other at this point!" She yelled at him and she was right. "Congratulations!" was being heard over and over again and the people in the roomed were disappearing like no tomorrow. It looks like the first phase was about speed.

"Well I'm going to find someone to kill so I'll see you guys later." Killua announced but before he left Gon shouted.

"But I don't want to kill anyone!" His friends didn't know what to say. They felt the same way, well expect for Killua and maybe when push comes to shove Leorio but they could see that Gon didn't want to fail either. This was the final phase of the hunter exam all over again.

"Relax. You don't have to kill anyone." Maya suddenly piped up.

"Huh? But we saw both Hisoka and Sakura kill someone and then pass." Kurapika reminded her.

"Well putting aside this Hisoka guy. I know for a fact Sakura didn't kill the guy. I've know her for 6 years now and she has never killed anyone."

"That may be true but she's a hunter-"

"She passed the exam 5 years ago."

"…" They were shocked when Chase stated this fact.

"How old is she?!" Leorio shouted out of disbelief. He was the only one who voiced it out loud but everyone was thinking it. The girl looked no older then what 15?

"She's 17." Maya answered him with a blank face. She was really getting tired of these people only judging on looks.

"Oh so she passed when she was 12. That's pretty impressive haha." Leorio scratched the back of his head. He could feel the annoyance bouncing off of her.

"I suppose it is to an old man."

"Who are you calling old man?! I only turned 21 this year!"

"…Eh?!" Maya's eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. A vein could be seen popping up on Leorio's forehead.

"Well you got to admit you kind of deserved that Lerio."

"It's Leorio!"

"Ok enough! We're wasting time so let's get started already!" Kurapika finally snapped. He really didn't want to fight his friends and hearing that you didn't have to kill made him all the more motivated to pass. He didn't like failure.

"Kurapika's right. Come on guys we can do it!" Gon yelled excitedly. Everyone else even Leorio who had snapped back to the matter at hand by Kurapika's outburst were all determined to pass the first phase as well.

Looking around at all the determined faces in front of him Kurapika announced the starting signal. It just felt like the thing to do at the moment.

"Ok break!" The next moment everyone disappeared to find their target. Hopefully there were still some people left for them to knock out.

"Hey how did you guys do that?" Leorio was left dumfounded, as everyone had practically vanished into thin air. Speed was not exactly his strong point but he didn't let that get him down long and dashed into the combat zone.

~ Time Skip ~

All of them managed to passed. Turns out the only reason why a lot of people passed really fast at the start was because they had the element of surprise on their side. As time went on everyone had put their guard up and it was a lot harder knocking someone out who's prepared for you.

"Phew! That was harder than I thought!"

"What'd you expect? Everyone here is a professional hunter."

"We probably wouldn't have made it if they weren't."

"Never mind that! We have to find Sakura before that psychopathic maniac does anything bad to her!" Maya shouted with concern for her friend.

Kurapika was a little worried himself. He hadn't seen her after dropping down a hole himself and the person who passed after her was Hisoka. Who knows what that crazy clown would do. _'I hope nothing bad happened to her.' _

"Hey guys!" Sakura suddenly popped up behind them.

"Gah! Don't do that!" Leorio jumped back from shock. It looks like they were worried about nothing though. She looked totally fine.

_'I guess I was worried about nothing.' _Kurapika thought as he watched Leorio shouting at her for scaring him.

"Sakura! You're ok!" Maya pushed Leorio aside and hugged her friend. "What have you been doing all this time?!"

"Um yeah I'm fine." Sakura looked at her friend confused as to why she was so worried. "Oh and I've been playing cards with this really interesting guy!"

_'Wait playing cards why does that sound bad…'_

"Hey guess who~" A shiver ran down everyone's back when that eerie and familiar voice reached their ears.

"Oh hey Hisoka!" Sakura smiled and waved to the man behind them.

"That's who you've been 'playing cards' with?!" Leorio asked with disbelief and uneasiness clearly present in his voice.

"Yeah and why did you use quotation marks around 'playing cards'?" Sakura asked back and did the quotation marks sign around playing cards as well.

"Did you think I did something else with this cutiepie?" Hisoka intervened with that signature smile and laugh of his.

"Did you actually just play cards?" Kurapika asked looking sceptically at the clown.

"Of course. She was bored so I offered to play with her while she waits for you guys. Besides I need to wait for her to ripen a bit more before that~" _**(A/N: Ok I just realised every part of what he said just sound plain out creepy haha…)**_

"Haha he says the funniest things." Sakura smiled oblivious to the fact he had just announced that she was his prey.

_'Ok maybe there's something wrong with her head…'_

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**_A/N: Well I hope that wasn't too bad. My writing style is mostly dialogue so sorry if there isn't much detail. I didn't really know what I was writing half of the time but yeah I did my best and I hope you guys liked it._**

_**Cherry blossoms = Sakura (In case you didn't know already :P)**_

_**Sakura's Nen Ability (In case anyone didn't really get it ^^)**_

_**She's a conjurer. She creates things by first creating petals and then pieces them together to create her desired object. She can technically create things without the first step but only simple things, things made out of one piece (petals, blades). More complicated things need the first step to create the moving parts and extra details (guns, clothes, instruments). She needs to know all the parts to make things she creates work. She can only manipulate simple objects (turning petals into pieces).**_

_**For the record this is just a basic explanation so not all her moves are listed. Maya and Chase's abilities will be listed later… **_

_**P.S. I try not to make my OCs too OP so sorry if there seem to be too many conditions but I see a lot in the anime so I think it's used so everyone's not too OP.**_


	3. Chapter 2: Truth x and x Lies

**A/N: COMPLETING THIS FANFICTION IS MY NEW YEARS RESOLUTION!**

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**Chapter 2: Truth x and x Lies**

The ambulances have come and gone leaving only half of the original number of people.

"Congratulations to all the hunters who have passed the first phase!" It was Beans on the TV again. It turns out that the holes led them back to the room they entered at the start. "I would like you to thank the first examiner for making the first exam possible." The screen shifted moving Beans out of the shot and onto a guy in a black cloak. His face was completely hidden by the hood. He gave a quick a nod and then Beans was back. "Ok so the next examiner will be there soon and the second phase will start soon. I wish you all the best of luck." With that the screen went black.

"There was an examiner?" Maya asked taken aback since the examiner didn't appear at the start of the first phase like she thought examiners had to. They were all just thrown into it without any explanation.

"They were probably just testing us on how to react to the unexpected." Kurapika explained. He knew it was an important life lesson after all it wasn't a secret that he was no stranger to unexpected.

"Yeah plus he kind of looked like one of the guys who works in the shadows." Leave it to Gon to put forward those kinds of explanations.

"I know right! You can practically feel it through his aura." Sakura added to Gon's already interesting theory. Can you even feel a person's aura through a TV?

"I thought conjurers were supposed to be smart…" Leorio muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" Sakura turned around and gave Leorio one of those smiles with dark aura seeping out of her.

"N-Nothing!" Leorio stuttered out a reply and looked away from her. He did not want to end up like the guy she shot in the first phase. Even though he wasn't dead it still looked like he was in pretty bad shape.

*Boom!*

A smoke bomb suddenly went of at the front of the room. The smoke spread down and out a bit before dissipating and revealing a short fat man. He was wearing those weird spiral glasses and holding really big, thick books. For such a flashy entrance he was that pleasing to the eye.

"I am the second phase examiner!" His shrill voice echoed throughout the entire room. It was unbearable. _'Why couldn't he be like the first examiner and not show his face or voice ever…' _Kurapika thought blandly.

"Don't tell me that guy is a professional hunter?" Leorio asked incredulously.

Not a moment later a book came flying and hit him in the face. Kurapika would have felt a little sorry for him but the guy has got to learn his lesson on not judging a book by it's cover especially with their encounter with a few certain people.

"Silence!" How could such a big voice come from such a small man he had to wonder.

"Now I know some of you may be thinking that I could not possibly be a hunter." The examiner glared at Leorio before continuing. "But let me tell you a little something… intelligence beats strength any day! In the second phase you will be tested on exactly that!

_'Good something right up my alley.' _Kurapika thought happily. Not that he wouldn't be able to handle more physical challenges but he was kind of hoping that this exam wouldn't be too difficult. This was the closest thing to a break he has allowed in a very long time and he wanted it to be an enjoyable time with his friends.

"Now I'll explain the second exam as simple as possible so that even you simpletons can understand how it works." He turned to face the wall behind him and set down his books on the floor. Then he placed both his hands on the wall. His eyes glowed and suddenly doors started appearing on the walls covering the entire room. Kurapika assumed that there were for each participant to enter but upon further inspection there were definitely not enough doors for everyone.

The people in the room murmured amongst themselves probably having the same thoughts as he did or just out of plain confusion.

"Eh hem!" The examiner cleared his throat really loud to silence the room. "I'm assuming you all are confused about the number of doors."

"No kidding Sherlock." Leorio decided to share his opinion out loud again and once again a book came flying and smacked him in the face.

"Anyway…" the examiner continued, vein clearly evident on his forehead. "The chairman agreed with me that you people are nothing but a bunch of imbeciles, so much so that he has decided this phase will be carried out in groups so that you might even have a very small chance of passing. Now get into groups and stand in front of a door so the phase can start." The room was fill with murmurs once again but not out of confusion rather out of excitement. Most would hate to admit it but if they were to take this test alone they would most likely fail. But now they have a chance to rope in some poor sucker to do all the work for them.

"Kurapika looks like we can work together this time!" Gon shout excitedly.

"Yeah. It'll just be like the good old days." Leorio said while rubbing the spot on his face the book had hit him. Twice.

"That brain of yours is finally useful." Killua added on casually as if it wasn't in any way an insult at all.

"Uh yeah…" Kurapika responded to his friend's excitement. _'Looks like I'm the poor sucker doing all the work…" _

"Aw that's so nice to see your friends appreciating you so much." Sakura chimed in with sparkling eyes. Did she actually see Killua's comment as a compliment or was she being sarcastic? Kurapika couldn't really tell…

"Not so fast." Leorio suddenly jumped in.

"Huh?"

"Don't act all innocent. I don't care if you're a famous idol or whatever you're not going to take advantage of Kurapika!" Leorio announced.

_'Aren't you doing the same thing?'_ Kurapika sweat dropped.

"What?! Why would I do that?!" Sakura responded angrily for being wrongfully accused.

"Leorio you have to stop jumping to conclu-" Kurapika tried to reason with Leorio before he got shot but was cut off.

"Besides I know way more than he does anyway!" Sakura declared.

"Ok now just hold on a minute! What makes you think you know more than me?!" Kurapika questioned because no offence to her but from what he's seen so far she was the sharpest tool in the shed.

"I'll have you know I have an IQ over 200." Sakura stated. She was now facing him and seemed to have completely forgotten about Leorio.

"You took an IQ test?" Chase asked with disbelief.

"I thought it was a game at first but it counts!"

"Um… ok but just so you know I have an IQ over 200 too." Kurapika shot back.

"Yeah well-" Sakura started.

"Ok enough!" Maya cut her off deciding to bring this pointless fight to an end before it even started. "Look we have an smart pants test going on right now so why don't we decide who knows more about stuff no one cares about based on the results?"

"…That's actually a good idea." Kurapika had to admit.

"So whoever gets the most right wins!" Sakura announced showing that she too accepted the idea.

"What if they both get the same amount right?"

"Then it's whoever does it the fastest?" Kurapika proposed.

"That seems fair…" Sakura agreed. "So it's on!" She announced once again.

"Fine with me." Sparks were flying as both of them glared at each other with determination in their eyes.

After both of them calmed down the group headed towards the nearest two doors. They all decided to keep the original groups so on Kurapika's side were Gon, Killua, Leorio and Hanzo and on Sakura's side were Maya and Chase. Hanzo wanted to go on Sakura's side but she was too absorbed with Kurapika and Maya had turned him down for her. In the end he resigned himself to joining Kurapika's side and Hisoka went off on his own, not surprising.

"Looks like you all are _finally_ ready." The examiner remarked making sure to put the emphasis on the word _finally_. Kurapika was a little surprised as well how long it took for professional hunters to simply get into groups, not that he was one to talk. He was pretty sure they were the last ones to get ready. "Now I'll explain how this is going to work." He cleared his throat before continuing. "The doors in front of you lead to a small room. It will be empty except for the wall you see directly across you when you enter. There will be a question on it in which you have to answer. You will only have one attempt meaning once you have written your answer down you cannot change it, then that wall will go up and the next question will be on the wall behind that one. This will continue until you have completed all 100 questions and reached the end of the corridor, which opens up to a hall where you will have to wait until the time is up. The time limit is 10 hours. Also you have to get at least half right to pass. Any questions?"

"What do we write with?" A voice popped out from the crowd. The examiner had one of those 'are you serious?' faces but he decided it wasn't worth it and answered the guy without a lecture.

"Use your nen." He said blankly and was about to start the second phase right away not waiting for anymore questions since if he got asked another really stupid question like the one just then he would most likely shoot someone but then another voice popped up.

"Are the questions difficult?" Sakura asked. The examiner looked like he was about to explode. This question wasn't even remotely relevant. He was able to hold it in though and answered her question though gritted teeth.

"Yes." He opened his mouth to start the second phase again but Sakura interrupted him again with a follow up question.

"Do you know all the answers?"

"Of course I do."

"How?"

"What do you mean how I was the one who wrote the damn thing!" The examiner looked like he was about to commit a bloody murder on her.

"Wow! So you wrote all 100 questions on the walls in all the rooms?!" Sakura exclaimed with amazement. Kurapika had to admit he was a little amazed too. The guy actually made the effort to do all that for them. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all.

"Well… no. I used my nen to create all the questions." The examiner confessed.

"Oh…" Her amazement died down as she took in his confession. "But I'm assuming you're marking all of the questions yourself right? Since if you told anyone else that could lead to cheating."

"Well again… no. The questions are automatically marked once you move on to the next question." The examiner explained.

"What do you mean automatically?"

"Come on little girl just get over it so we can start the second phase already!" A guy from the crowd yelled at her.

"Shut up! She's asking a very important question!" The examiner yelled back at the guy. He wouldn't let a chance do to be able to brag about his own abilities slip by. He had been answering all her ridiculous questions might as well get something out of it. "Ok look I think this will be easier if I explain how my nen works." Kurapika was shocked that the examiner was actually cooperating. Maybe he was at least a good enough guy to explain something to someone for nothing. "This way you'll see how incredible it is!" Nope he was just another narcissistic jerk. "You see I ask the universe a question and it gives me the answer. This way I can know the answer to anything." He explained and was now ready for an applause or sign of admiration. He didn't get anything close…

"So you're just a cheater." Sakura said with a deadpan expression.

"Of course not!" The examiner exclaimed offended by the accusation.

"But you basically just have an answer book."

"Well then how do you find things out? Through a book right?" He countered looking quite smug. _'Now way she can counter that!'_

"I guess…" She actually appeared to be accepting what the examiner just said. A couple of people in the room gave a sigh of relief. Finally she was done and they can get on with the exam. "So who ate the first cake?"

"Huh?"

"Well I've always wanted to know and you can know the answer to anything so…"

"Uh ok…" The examiner was getting tired of being interrogated so he decided it was best to answer her ridiculous question to shut her up and end this.

The examiner closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then after he breathed out, he was all ready to ask the question but Sakura intervened before a single sound came out.

"You can't do that!" Sakura shouted with flailing arms.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" The examiner asked with hints of malice laced through his words.

Kurapika was amazed that he hadn't snapped from all the crap Sakura was giving him. Perhaps he had a soft spot for girls considering his reaction to Leorio and that other guy.

"Yeah but if you do that, that's cheating!" Sakura firmly stated and stomped her foot to add to the moment.

Eyes snapped open.

"NO ONE WOULD KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT POINTLESS QUESTION!" The examiner yelled at the top of his lungs. He wasn't holding anything back anymore. The fury, malice and annoyance were now very clear in his voice and all over his face. His temple was filled with veins just ready to burst.

This time she did it…

"YOU KNOW WHAT? I WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO TAKE IT A LITTLE EASY ON YOU PEOPLE BUT I'VE CHANGED MY MIND!" Eyes shut closed and were glowing like crazy when they reopened. A shockwave passed through all of them and hit the doors. The doors shook and clattered then began to settle down after a few more moments of violent shaking.

"There… now there are questions even… even I don't know the answer to yet…" The examiner squeezed out in his exhausted state and then collapsed.

Deadly silence filled the room as they stared at the unconscious body lying on the floor. Then every pair of eyes in the room were on the person who was responsible for making the examiner faint.

"Huh. I can't believe that worked." Sakura said plainly while just staring at the guy. Her eyes were slightly widened as a sign of a little surprise.

"You planned that?" Kurapika asked in shock. She just glanced over to his direction and said, "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't." And with that she reached forward and opened the door then walked in as if she didn't just cause a mental breakdown.

"A contest is more fun with harder questions!" She yelled before going out of sight.

"How does she do the worst things with the greatest of ease?" Kurapika meant to only say in his mind but accidently said out loud.

"Well to her if you're not dead you're fine." Chase clarified.

Kurapika felt he had to say something back. "Is that so."

"Yep. By the way shouldn't you get going? Aren't you supposed to be competing with her?"

"Ah!" Kurapika raced through the door. He wasn't about to lose to that wack job.

Both their friends followed them in and when the last one was through the door automatically closed shut. Now the only way to go was forward but that didn't seem be a problem for Kurapika and his friends. As soon as the door shut behind them the wall in front of them went up indicating a question has just been answered.

"Wow Kurapika that was fast!" Gon shouted with amazement.

"Yeah we just got he-." Before Killua could even finish his sentence another wall went up. "-re"

"Is it necessary to go this fast? For all you know she could still be on the first-" Another wall went up. "-question."

"Better safe than sorry. I am not losing her." Kurapika answered firmly.

"That's the spirit! Here let me help." Hanzo offered but his request was rejected by a slap on the hand.

"Ow! What was that for?" Hanzo asked confused while rubbing the back of his hand where Kurapika had hit him.

"Sorry." Kurapika apologised. That was a bit harsh on a person that was only trying to help. "I just really want to do this myself." It wouldn't count if Hanzo or anyone else helped him.

"So you're just going to do all this yourself?"

"Yep"

"Awesome! I'm down for doing no work at all."

"Killua!" Leorio shouted at Killua for attempting to take advantage of Kurapika.

"What? We'd just get in the way anyway."

"No we won't! Right Kurapika?"

When Leorio turned to ask him Kurapika just turned away and avoided any chance of eye contact.

Leorio went to sulk in a corner and Gon patted his back.

* * *

Maya and Chase had just entered the room to find their friend staring at the wall, unmoving.

"Sakura what are you doing?" Maya asked.

"I'm waiting for Kurapika to answer the first question so we can start together."

"Um ok… but wouldn't that just mean that he would have the head start?"

"…" Sakura was at a loss for words as contemplated on what Chase had just told her.

*Boom* The sound came from the room Kurapika and the others were in.

"Ah! He already answered the first question. Why didn't you tell me sooner?!" Sakura shouted and started shaking Chase.

"I-I didn't know y-you were w-waiting for him!" Chase managed to squeeze out while being violently shaken. "Anyway s-shouldn't you get s-started?"

Sakura stopped shaking her friend then shifted to the wall with the question. She raised her hand and pink petals swarmed around then scattered to reveal a cute pink pen with cherry blossoms on it. For a person short on time it was a really detailed pen… She spun the pen around once and announced, "Let's do this!" Then she was off. Like Kurapika she answered the first question with ease and the rest followed suit.

The race was on.

Both Kurapika and Sakura were answering questions at an unbelievable speed. There was no hesitation as they answered each question. None of their friends could even read the question before the wall went up and revealed the next one behind it.

"Wow Sakura how do you know all this stuff? Didn't the examiner say that even he didn't know some of the answers to these questions?" Maya asked as she watched her in amazement.

"You shouldn't think highly of that guy. I bet the books he carries are just for decoration. Unlike him I actually read a lot of books." Sakura answered her whilst still answering the questions without the slightest falter in her movements.

"I didn't know you were interested in history and all that other stuff about the world."

"Well I'm not but see I used to have this friend and he used to tell me I should use my time to read and learn instead of wasting it on useless things like music and building booby traps.

"Wait you used to build booby tra-"

"So I was like stuff you I can be smart and still be able to play and have fun! Anyway now it's just become a habit now and I just read random books when I have free time."

Not knowing how to react to… that Maya decided to just leave her be but something clicked in Chase's head and he decided to voice it out loud.

"Hey Sakura, how come we've never met that friend of yours or any of your other friends?"

Sakura's hand stopped moving. That was definitely suspicious.

"Because… I think he thinks that… I'm dead?" Sakura said hesitantly as if she had just come up with a random lie and just realised how stupid it sounded as it came out of her mouth. It wasn't a lie though. It may be an over simplified version of the truth but it was still the truth…

Ugh! Why did she even have to bring him up she wondered. _'I should really learn not to get caught up in the moment and blurt out something stupid.'_

She just really didn't have the heart to talk about it and was hoping with all her heart that her friend would just drop it.

That hope was short-lived.

"Ok so he thinks you're dead so that means he's alive right? So why didn't you tell him you're not dead?" Maya asked. If she herself met a lost friend she would tell them immediately.

"To be fair… I thought he was dead as well." Sakura defended herself. Why did she have to be smart now?

"Anyway I really rather not talk about it, okay?" She said right after so that Maya did not have a chance to retort.

She wasn't ready. Everything was changing so fast Things that she never thought she had to deal with were resurfacing. Everything she had kept hidden deep down had the potential to be brought out into the light and she was scared.

Silence filled the entire room only to be interrupted by the sound of the wall going up once again. Both Maya and Chase knew that, that was a sign that Sakura was serious when she was said she didn't want to talk about it and that was saying something since she was rarely ever serious about anything. No one spoke a word and just let the sound of the walls lull the situation. It was at a much slower pace though. The energy their friend had at the start was long gone, which caused a whole lot of guilt to flood into Maya.

_'Why did I say that?' _Maya thought with regret. She didn't know what it was that made her normally very cheery friend so upset but no matter how curious she was she knew it wasn't a good idea to push any further. "Sorry."

"Ah! You don't have to apologize! It's not your fault!" Sakura reassured Maya, waving her hands in front of her and forcing a smile on her face. "I was just thinking about stuff…" She started drifting away again at the end but this time Maya didn't say anything back.

* * *

Meanwhile on Kurapika's end things were actually going pretty smoothly. Leorio was still sulking a little but even if Kurapika wanted his help he wouldn't be able to… Kurapika's pace had slowed down a little due to increase in the length and the difficulty of the questions and now that his friends could actually read the questions they saw that they had no chance in hell without Kurapika. It's not like they weren't smart but they were only geniuses at particular things. For instance Leorio would know more about medicine better than anyone, Hanzo would excel in martial arts, Killua with assassination techniques and Gon knew the forest like the back of his hand. Everybody had their own strengths and this was probably what the second phase was supposed to exploit but thanks to Kurapika that wasn't the case.

"Kurapika how do you know all this stuff?" Gon groaned. Just watching him made his brain hurt.

"Books." Was his short reply.

"Pff! What did you do read a whole library?!"

"Actually I read all the books in the library of my hometown." He proclaimed.

"You sure had a lot of free time."

"Well it's not like I could do anything else. Might as well do something useful for the future." He had to inwardly sigh at the last part. All the reading and learning in the past was pretty much useless for the path he was on now. Although he had to admit that doing this quiz now and competing with Sakura struck a feeling of nostalgia and it felt nice. It was as if he had escaped for a brief moment in time and gone back to the peaceful days where he would compete with his old friend. But at the same time it was excruciating knowing that it would never really happen after all what he once loved was all gone. His friend was no exception.

_'Ok no let's not think about that now.'_

His friends didn't seem to question him further probably knowing to tread lightly when the subject of his past came up. It's not like he was completely against talking about the past but he hid appreciate his friends' gesture.

Both Kurapika and Sakura were now solely focused on completing the quiz now and it looked like they were almost finished without any problems with the questions. That was until they reached the final question. Both of them stopped. Their hand and whole body frozen in place as their mind processed the question on the wall. The others curious about their friend's sudden pause decided to read the question themselves. They weren't that surprised because they have answered every other question with ease it was only a matter of time they don't know the answer to one of them.

But that wasn't the case. The reason both of them stopped wasn't because they didn't know the answer it was something else.

For Kurapika's friends it was obvious that it wasn't that he didn't know the answer to the question but it was a different story with Sakura's friends.

* * *

"Did a question finally get you stumped?" Chase said with a smug look on his face. It had bothered him a little in the shift of intelligence in their friend group so he was more than happy to show his intelligence by answering a question even Sakura who has recently shown that she wasn't as dense as she seemed.

That face was soon wiped completely off as he read the question.

_'How many kuratas lived in Lusko before the massacre?' _

"Ok we're screwed on this one."

"Hey! What about me?!" Maya chimed in offended that Chase didn't even consider her.

"Oh, you know the answer?" Chase asked surprised.

"…Well no …but you guys don't know!" Maya defended herself. Sure she may not know the answer to this particular question but that doesn't mean she wasn't smart and anyway they didn't know either so they were all in the same boat.

"It's not that I don't know the answer." Sakura finally spoke up.

Chase and Maya stopped glaring at each other and turned their heads towards her. Then looked back at each other in confusion then back at her. Maya nudged Chase telling him to ask her the question that she knew was on both their minds.

"Then why did you stop?" Chase asked slowly. Partly because he knew it wasn't a good idea but mostly because he wanted to ask more than that one question. This was actually the closest they have gotten to unravelling the secrets that he knows that she's been keeping. Maya may not have noticed because they met first and have a lot more trust between them but he had watched Sakura from an objective point of view over the past few years and something about her just didn't quite add up. How he wished he could just go up and ask her all his questions but he knew if he did she would just stealthily avoid them or worst case scenario she would cut all ties with them. He cared for her and not letting your troubles out isn't good for you. Why can't she see that they can help her instead of bottling it all up inside?

Sakura was a little confused on why he said it so slow and how he was eyeing her but she decided to brush it aside.

"…I'm not sure if I have the right answer."

"Well your guess is as good as ours."

"It doesn't even matter anyway. You got the other question right, right?"

"I guess… haah what the heck." After much thought Sakura decided to answer the question. It's not it was going to change anything…

On the other side Kurapika did the same.

_Kurapika – 128_

_Sakura – 129_

* * *

The last question has been answered and the last wall had gone up. What was behind it was nothing but fresh air they so richly needed after being closed in for what felt like forever. It was a lot more emotional than what any of them bargained for.

"Uwaa! Finally free!" Gon flopped onto the green grass. The hallway had lead to a wide open plain with green as far as the eye can see. It was a total change of scenery and Gon definitely preferred this one than the last.

"Wow who knew that dingy room led to this?" Leorio finally spoke after his long sulking session.

"Yeah! It's amazing!" A voice rang out from behind them.

"Ah! What are you guys doing here?"

Sakura, Maya and Chase emerged from the hole next to theirs.

"The same reason as you?" Maya answered them. Did he really forget that they were all in the same exam?

"Right haha."

"Hey since you both finished at pretty much the same time is it all down to how many questions you got right, right?"

"Huh? Oh! The competition I completely forgot." With all that happened it completely slipped her mind.

"If you could even call it a competition." Leorio remarked.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well I'm just saying there is no way you can win." Leorio told her looking all smug.

"What are you so proud of you weren't even the one competing" Kurapika decided to point out.

"Yeah and your wrong! Sakura's definitely going to win you should've seen her go! Maya fired at Leorio.

"No your wrong! Kurapika was going at the speed of light!" Leorio fired back.

It was really only Leorio and Maya who were in the heated battle. He and Sakura had backed away from the fire but you could see the sparks flying between them.

"Oi! Instead of arguing why don't you people just be patient and wait until the exam is over to get the results of the competition?"

"Because they're idiots."

"Killua!"

"Sakura-chan is not an idiot! She'll score 100 for sure."

"Hanzo you traitor!"

"What happened to no arguing?"

In the end everyone still continued arguing but as more people started to appear it slowly died out until it was complete silence.

Some people were eyeing them since they were the first ones to finish and it was just plain uncomfortable especially Hisoka's gaze. He really hopes that maniac turns out to be an idiot and fails.

It didn't take 10 hours for everyone to finish; the sun had just started to set.

"Ok time for the results." The examiner stepped out from the actual door on the wall. "Now let's see if any of you fools passed." He seemed to have recovered well enough to insult people again...

The examiner's eyes started to glow and so did the sheet of paper he had in his hands. After a while the glowing died out and the examiner cleared his throat. "If I call out you name then you pass…" His eyes widened when he read the first name on the list. It looked like they were about to pop out of his head. "It can't be. There must have been a mistake. But that's impossible I don't make mistakes."

"What's wrong?" Sakura asked.

"What the hell are you doing?" Maya yelled at her in a hushed tone.

"Huh? I was just-"

"You!" The examiner pointed at her.

"E-eh me?"

"You scored… 100." The last part came out in a mumble. He continued to mouth it over and over trying to wrap his head around it.

Sakura herself looked a little surprised but more about the fact that the examiner instantly assumed that it was all her doing. Maybe he had overheard about her conversation with Kurapika…

_'__Eavesdropping is a violation of privacy people!" _her inner self yelled and started plotting ways on how to make them all realize this in the worst way possible. Of course she wasn't actually going to carry them out but a girl can dream can't she?

"Her mind has wondered onto something really stupid hasn't it?" Maya asked Chase while watching her friend make really weird facial expressions while exerting a pretty questionable aura. Although it was really more of a statement than a question but Chase gave his affirmation anyway.

"Yep."

Meanwhile Kurapika's mind was nowhere near their contest. Right now the only thing on his mind was _'How did she get the last answer right?' _Could it be that… no! What was he thinking she obviously just read it somewhere random she did say she read a lot of books. Yes. That was the only explanation. He should know by now that it couldn't possibly be what he first thought. Why was he torturing himself again especially after the Pairo incident. But now that he took a closer look she does sort of look like-

"Wait! Did anyone else score 100?" Leorio interrupted his train of thought. Absolutely not accepting that she may have beaten Kurapika.

"What? Oh." The examiner just accepted defeat and decided to finish his job as examiner professionally. He already looked bad enough as it is.

Leorio's question had been ignored but as the results were being announced it was answered when he reached their group.

"Gon, Killua, Kurapika, Leorio and Hanzo pass with a score of 99."

"Which question did I get wrong?" Kurapika interjected before the examiner could move on to the next group. He acknowledges the fact that Sakura is really smart but that doesn't mean he wasn't just as smart. He takes pride in his vast knowledge and none of the questions in his opinion was out of it.

"The last one."

Blink. Blink.

"What?"

The last question was about his clan wasn't it? How could he have gotten it wrong… but more importantly how could she have gotten it right? That meant that their answers were different and he got it wrong? It makes no sense!

Seeing the conflict in his eyes the examiner motioned to the person who was the very cause of his brain malfunctioning.

"Why don't you just ask her? After all she seems to have _all _the answers." The examiner told him in a bitter sarcastic tone and returned to announcing the results.

Kurapika decided to take his advice and walked up to Sakura who was recovering from her own meltdown of some sort.

"Um… how did you know the answer to the last question?"

The dark aura dissipated around her and she turned to face him.

"Huh? Oh um… I don't know it was just somewhere in my mind I guess haha." She replied and gave a nonchalant shrug.

"Did you read about it in a book?"

"Uh yeah." _'Let's go with that.' _She replied, deliberately leaving out the last bit unbeknown to him.

"So… what was your answer."

"129. But my memory was really hazy so I just took a wild guess. Looks like luck was on my side haha. _'Don't look at him in the eyes don't look him in the eyes he'll know you're lying!' _Sakura repeated to herself. She was really regretting answering the last question the way she did now. Why didn't she just answer it normally? Well a part of her knew exactly why and was both a little glad and sad she had been right.

"Oh…" So he was just one off. Maybe they had updated the records now that they knew one was still alive. But even so he only remembered there being 128 _including _himself… did he just forget someone?

At the thought of actually forgetting one of his brethren he was hit with a sharp pang of guilt and hurt. Even though it literally felt as if the judgment chain had literally stabbed him in the heart he knew it was the only explanation and he had to accept it.

Both were unaware to what was going on in the other's mind and both planned to keep it that way, causing a really awkward silence. Luckily that didn't last long when their friends came and intervened.

"So you're finally at the age when you think about that kind of stuff huh." Killua implied slyly.

"You can't do that. You didn't even know about her!" Hanzo yelled at him looking very betrayed.

"What no I was just asking her what she got for the last answer!" Kurapika defended himself.

"That's right! How did you get that question right when even Kurapika got it wrong and he's actually a kurata!"

"That has actually been on my mind a lot since it was the only question Sakura struggled with. What is a kurata?" Chase asked.

"Me too! They must've been pretty bad people to have been massacred." Maya added without realizing what a terrible she just said.

"Maya!" Sakura yelled at her.

"W-What?" Maya couldn't help but stutter. This was one of the very few times that she had seen her friend make a serious glare.

"No it's ok." Kurapika cut in before things got bad. He didn't like seeing friends fighting and he certainly didn't want to be the cause of it.

"Ah! I didn't mean to-" Maya started as she realized her mistake.

"It's ok." He reassured her. It's not like she knew any better but it did surprise him that she and her other friend didn't know about his clan. Didn't they say they passed the hunter exam 5 years ago? Well it was sort of a good thing they didn't since it shows that they're not interested in those kinds of things and that made him feel a lot better around them.

"But so that we're clear. The kurata weren't bad people they were only massacred their scarlet eyes." It still hurt a lot when he said this but he wanted to set the record straight.

"Scarlet eyes?"

"Our eyes turn red when we get angry." Kurapika explained.

"Ooh! I want to see!" Maya said excitedly and stared intently at his eyes.

"Um… I'd rather not." He saw the look of disappointment in her eyes but he wasn't really up for it right now more than ever.

"By the way just because you won this round doesn't mean you've won it all!" Leorio pointed at Sakura. He was glad that Leorio adverted the attention to something else but shouldn't it be the person who was actually competing that said that kind of stuff.

"Bring it on I'll take him on and beat him down any day." Sakura responded, which lead to _another _fight.

_'__Those two sure know how to make people mad' _Kurapika thought as he just watched it go down. Hanzo was holding back Leorio and yelling at him that he would kill him if he even put a scratch on his idol whilst Sakura was just taunting him by pulling her eye sticking her tongue out at him. He couldn't help but smile at the scene.

And thus concluded phase 2.

* * *

**A/N: Finished the second chapter! Accomplishment!**

**Gah! I really can't do the third person thing! I tried to keep it in Kurapika's POV but then it switched to Sakura's quite a bit and some others haha... or is that how third person works… Uwaa I get so confused wether to put the names or not ;–; Well just so you guys know the opinions made in the story are mostly Kurapika's and sometimes Sakura's. Should I put the little marks that show thoughts?! But they're not thinking it, it's their opinions! AM I DOING IT RIGHT?!**

**Haah… ok meltdown over.**

**Thank you for bearing with me and sticking around. It really means a lot to know people are reading my stories. I know if I was a professional author I would be a nightmare to work with, which is actually sort of bad since that's something I wanna be if being an english teacher in japan doesn't work out… probably won't since I am super shy especially in front of crowds. I don't know that's just been on my mind since I had that talk recently and I am getting older… I am so conflicted because I want to grow up and be able to do stuff but I'm also super stressed out!**

**I'm having a lot of meltdowns. Not a good way to start the year…**

**Anyway! I don't know if you've noticed but I tend to explain my logic in my author notes so I guess if you want stuff explained you should read if you want to find out by yourself… DON'T READ IT! Well past the first paragraph those are my thoughts and stuff :P**

**In this chapter I tried to put in all the character um… personalities? Plus a little backstory? I feel like there are proper words for those… I don't know my mind is just all over the place right now. Also I know the part with the examiner seemed unnecessary but in my mind it was because the second examiner is supposed to actually be an idiot (that's why the questions were sorta easy haha) and there was no way he would've known details about the kurata clan and nobody else should have either… To be honest I don't know what on earth I was doing and I just wanted to write a complete an outline of the story first. So you get a feel of what people actually knew at the start, what they were suspecting and what they didn't know.**

**P.S. You probably already know but I used the lines to switch between Kurapika and Sakura POV :)**


	4. Chapter 3: Keep x Moving x Forward

**A/N: Uwa! Finally done! Sorry it took so long it's just school and stuff but it's finally the holidays or "study break" as they call it now. Also sorry if the way I write changes randomly throughout the chapter haha... unprofessionalism at its finest! I've been writing this book with my friend about our friends and we went over 100 pages so that's cool but yeah I write different on that 'cause... I actually don't know but it messed me up a little because I started writing this first but then stopped halfway... anyway! Enough of my life story and on with this one!**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Keep x Moving x Forward**

The previous examiner had left and the new one had taken his place, which was good since he was on the edge of losing it thanks to a certain someone. Now everyone was waiting for the new examiner to make a move. Any move. Literally any move. She hadn't moved an inch since she arrived and that was 3 hours ago. The sun had already swapped places with the moon a long time ago and she had just been standing there with her arms crossed and her back to them. A few people had already left and went looking for a place to stay the night but others had a bit more patience. Kurapika had been reading a book the entire time and had just finished at the 3-hour mark. He looked around to see how many was left and if his friends were still there as well. After looking around for a while he had spotted Gon chasing Killua around with something in his hands, Leorio pacing back and forth with a really angry expression on his face, Hanzo was meditating and Sakura was asleep, splayed in a rather awkward position on the grass. Wait… since when has he counted her as a friend?

'_Well she doesn't seem like a bad person so I guess it's ok.' _

Since he had noticed her he thought he might as well see if her friends stuck around. They were and for some reason Maya was glaring at him. He averted her menacing gaze but what he saw was even worse and… disturbing. He saw Hisoka intently watching his friends Gon and Killua with a very questionable grin. Anyway it was good that all his friends plus some extras were still here. Professional hunters were a lot more impatient than he thought they would be, well they have only been hunters for a decade.

Wait.

Could it be that the exam was already over for today and they had just been waiting for a total random to make a move? No, this could also be a test of patience; patience is a very important for a hunter. But then again the assumed examiner didn't seem to be concerned with them. She hadn't even looked at them once-

"Yosh!" His epiphany was interrupted by a sudden outburst from the very person who was causing his confusion.

"Ok! Let's start this thing!" She pumped her fist in the air then turned around to face them for the very first time. "To the moon!" She yelled and fired up her aura then began running towards the moon at top speed.

"Um are we supposed to follow her?"

"I guess so."

"Let's do this thing!" Sakura declares excitedly and fires up her aura, thinking that this was some form of race, which she loved.

Everyone else fired up their aura as well and sped after her.

"Cool, this is just like the first phase of our hunter exam!" Gon shouts excitedly, remembering the event that had brought them all together.

"Which means we'll breeze right through it." Leorio says confidently.

"I don't seem to recall you breezing right through last time." Kurapika decides to casually remind him.

"Well this time it's different, I have maximum stamina now."

"What about those?" Killua points to the large array of deadly obstacles in front of them.

There were slitting saws coming out of the ground and swinging around on ropes tied to who knows where, lasers that were constantly moving and flames bursting out randomly from the right and left.

"At least they show us what we have to get through to pass right from the start. " Gon tried to lift Leorio's spirit's up although the bursting flames weren't really helping his case.

"Gah!" Leorio yelled out as a fragment of a saw that had been heated by the flames hit his face. "That's it you're going down!"

The others watched as Leorio stopped and hit the ground then by using his nen he was able to create a portal so instead of the ground, he punches hanging saws. He was able to hit it and shatter it to pieces but instead of celebrating he brings back his fist and cries out in pain "Gaaaaahhh!" Like the fragment from before the saw had been heated up by the flames and burnt his hand very badly.

"Want me to heal that for you?" Kurapika offers as he lets out a sigh at his friend's actions.

"That would great." Leorio quickly answers as he winces in pain.

Kurapika summons up his chains and used his holy chain to heal Leorio's burn and since it was only a minor injury it only took a couple of seconds to heal completely without using his scarlet eyes.

"Thanks." Leorio smiles as he checks his hand and was really impressed by Kurapika's healing abilities.

"You're welcome."

"Now let me show you how it's done." Killua says as he pushes Kurapika and Leorio out of the way then proceeded to create electricity in his hands.

Boom!

Killua threw a lightning bolt and in a matter of seconds the whole thing went up in smoke.

"Piece of cake." Killua turned to the others and gave a smirk at his handiwork.

"I think you should take another look." Kurapika pointed behind Killua.

Killua turns back around and sees that the obstacles he had just destroyed was back and looked totally untouched. He could only gape at the scene.

"Looks like we have to do it the old fashioned way." Gon says as he stretches his legs, getting ready to run then with a final jump he speeds towards the obstacles. He dodges all the saws and fires and makes his way through. "Come on guys!"

Hanzo follows in after Gon and easily gets through being the ninja he is. Killua races after them and quickly passes Hanzo to catch up to Gon. Kurapika goes off next with Leorio following close behind.

* * *

Meanwhile Sakura was up the front and since she was right next to the examiner so none of the obstacles affected her. The examiner had tried speeding up to lose her but she caught right back up.

"Mo! You have to get behind me!" The examiner yelled out in frustration.

Her ability was to create obstacles so that people could not get through and since she didn't want to get caught up in her own obstacles she usually creates them behind her but Sakura was beside her so she wasn't affected either.

"Why don't you just make the obstacles in front of you?" Sakura asked as she had figured out what the examiner was doing.

Of course the examiner had thought of doing that but she really didn't want to face those obstacles. Sakura may have gotten the gist of the examiner's abilities but they were much more complex. Someone wouldn't be able to survive as a hunter if that was all they could do. The true nature of her ability is the creation of a trigger to set off obstacles and the natures of the obstacles vary from person to person because every person pictures a different obstacle. She can control the level of the obstacles but the people who come across her triggers make everything else.

The two ways to set off the trigger is either to step on the landmines that the examiner had set along the way that activates her abilities or to think of the possibility of there being an obstacle in their way. This one may seem weird but it works very well against people who she was trying to catch. Cornered people tend to be very paranoid and think that there would be traps all around them, which would set off the trigger and make their imagination true.

The trigger is coordinated from white to black. White being the easiest obstacle ever and black is the worst thing you will ever encounter. The triggers in between could be any colour and are coordinated by shade. The lighter the colour the easier the obstacle will be, the darker it is the harder it is. In this case the triggers were green to camouflage into the grass.

The examiner had set them up so the further you go the more difficult the trigger levels. The obstacles will disappear after a while but the triggers will still be active.

The one Kurapika and the others faced were made from Killua's idea of an obstacle. Being a former assassin he was made to be wary of such traps and by doing that it set off the trigger although it was a white one so the obstacles were what Killua deemed easy.

The examiner decided to use a grey trigger and threw it in front of her. As soon as it hit the ground there was a huge explosion that caused her, Sakura and the others behind them to jump back. When the smoke cleared a series of lasers appeared in front of them. They were constantly moving and at quite a fast pace.

"How do you like that?" The examiner said smugly and turned to her side only to see that Sakura was already running towards her obstacle.

"I love lasers!" Sakura yelled out excitedly and happily dived into the deadly lasers. "It's like a game!" She continued to yell out as she easily made her way through the laser field.

The examiner could only stare before Maya entered the laser field as well and snapped her out of it.

"Hey! Wait!" The examiner jumped in after them.

* * *

Gon, Killua and Hanzo were speeding through whilst Kurapika and Leorio were lagging behind. They had past a couple of people on the way and were now onto the grey trigger area. Leorio had been struggling with the obstacles Gon, Killua and Hanzo had been creating due to the difference in their skills. This exam seemed to be based on speed and agility and those were not Leorio's strong points.

"Kurapika, you go ahead." Leorio told Kurapika as he noticed the he had had been slowing down to match his pace.

"Are you sure?" He question Leorio seeing at how much he was sweating.

The only a hand on his back that seemed to be covered in sweat. Feeling the wet sensation on his back, a shiver ran up his spine and he bolted away from it.

"That jerk actually went ahead!" Leorio shouted in disbelief as he had watched Kurapika sprint away from him super fast. "I'm not going to lose!" He pumped himself up and off he went.

Kurapika had run so fast that he had caught up to Gon and Killua.

"So you finally ditched the old man huh?"

"I heard that!"

"I wonder where that girl with pink hair went." Gon brings up since they hadn't seen her at all and they had past quite a lot of people.

Truth be told Kurapika had hoped he would've bumped into her by now. They had been running for what seemed like forever and encountered a lot of obstacles on the way.

"She must be at the very front." Killua says taking logic into play.

"That would make sense… let's catch up to her!" Gon suggests excitedly.

"Ok, I bet we're close already."

"But what about Leorio." Kurapika decides to remind them and points to the man panting very hard behind them. Sure Leorio was giving his all but he doesn't seem like he was going to catch up to them anytime soon and asking him to speed up doesn't seem at all possible in his current state.

"We'll take care of him for you." Chase suddenly appears beside them.

"Gah!"

"When did you get here?"

"We were here already, stupid." Maya appears on the other side.

"Gah! Quit that!"

"What do you mean you were already here?"

"Maya gave up and dragged me down wi-"

"I didn't give up!" Maya cuts Chase off and glared at him. "I just decided to use my nen ability to finish this stupid thing."

Not knowing what her ability was Kurapika looked at her confused.

"She has the ability to create a portal to all the places she's been and to all the people she's met so she was planning to create a portal to Sakura when she finished."

"Isn't that kind of cheating?"

"Pretty much."

"Do you want me to hurt you?" Maya threatens Chase not only accusing her of cheating but he had basically outlined her ability to Kurapika who she didn't like although Sakura's probably the only person she cares about.

"Anyway…" Chase starts to speak but in return stops running. "Like I said we'll take care of your friend."

Maya looks back at him then clicks her tongue knowing that if she left him behind and he didn't pass this phase Sakura would be upset. She stops as well and waits for Leorio to catch up to Chase so he would catch up to her.

"Thank you!" Gon yelled out behind him then speeds out of sight Killua follows right after him whilst Kurapika looked back one more time.

They seemed like good people from what he had witnessed so far, Leorio would be fine although it wasn't going to end well if Leorio made Maya mad and being Leorio, he probably will. Good thing he can also fix him back up with his holy chain that is if he's still alive.

_'Oh well.' _Kurapika speeds out of sight as well.

* * *

They had literally been running for hours now and the way Kurapika could tell was light was starting to peek out from the but the scenery hadn't changed, it was still a mass of green all around. Although he had noticed some patches of the grass were lighter and some were darker. Had it rained without him noticing?

He didn't have to ponder over it though since a few moments later another obstacle sprout out of the ground. This time they were in the form of people, creepy, green, faceless people. Gon and Killua took care of them all really fast but then they started to regenerate themselves. It was slow but the action had caught surprised them and they decided to play it safe and watch how this was going to turn out. They watched as the green pieces on the ground started to gather together into a pile then form back into the shape of people. Gon and Killua went to destroy them again and this time he helped them but it happened again. After they were destroyed and scattered all over the place, they gathered themselves together again.

"This is never going to end!" Gon yells out and Kurapika couldn't help but agree with him.

At this rate they were all going to use up all their energy against there green freaks. "Ugh! How could I have not realised sooner?!" He finally realised the obvious that those things were made out of grass.

Gon and Killua look over at Kurapika confused at his sudden outburst.

"Killua use your electricity on them."

"Why they'll just regenerate again."

"No they won't. Those things are made out of grass and grass burns but you'd have to get them all in one go."

"Hmph, who do you take me for."

Killua gathers his aura between his hands and created a mass of electricity then threw it at the grass monsters. In a split second the entire area in front of them were engulfed in flame.

"See easy!" Killua says confidently, admiring his work.

"Kurapika is something wrong?" Gon asks.

"What do you mean?"

"It's just normally you'd figure these things out right away." Gon says concerned about his friend.

"Uh it's probably because we've been up all day." Kurapika reassures Gon it was only a lack of sleep. Science does say that not getting enough sleep causes your brain to work less efficiently. Yep, just a lack of sleep, nothing else and it defiantly has nothing to do with a certain someone up ahead.

* * *

As Kurapika and the others were waiting for the fire to die down a little before they go through, Sakura was up ahead still competing with the examiner. They have gone through countless of obstacles made by the examiner but none of them had fazed Sakura.

"Why won't you go down?!" The examiner yelled at her in frustration.

"Isn't the point of this phase to not go down?" Sakura tilts her head, confused as to why the examiner wanted her to fail so badly.

"No, the point of this phase is that I set traps for you people and you fall for it and die.

_'Her true colours are showing…' _The other hunters behind them sweat dropped.

They continued on for a while and due to the examiner's rage all the obstacles had been extremely difficult that even she herself sustained minor injuries and the others distance between her and the others widened. But that still wasn't enough to take Sakura down, so she decided to use her last resort. To Sakura's surprise the examiner had gathered up all her energy and sped in front of her and when she deemed she was far enough she gathered her nen to the palm of her hands to create a black sphere. Sakura could only watch as the examiner raised the sphere and slammed it into the ground. A mass of black spurted out towards her, she closed her eyes and crossed her arms in front of herself to brace for the impact but nothing hit her. She slowly opened her eyes and was greeted with a completely different scene. Instead of the wide-open field she was now in a completely desolate village and she knew exactly who it belonged to.

"You've got to be kidding me."

* * *

On the other side the stood the examiner with a big smirk on her face as she looks upon the black sphere that had engulfed Sakura. "That'll show her."

She then noticed the people coming towards her from behind and decided that since she used her last level on Sakura she might as well do it for the rest. She may not like the kid but this was still an exam and it needed to be fair so she created a bunch of black spheres and threw them at the upcoming contenders. She did this to Kurapika, Gon and Killua when they arrived as well.

"What happening?"

"It must be part of the exam." Kurapika was able to get out before he was completely engulfed.

Gon and Killua got engulfed as well but they were all split up inside.

When the darkness subsided what Kurapika could now see was even worse than the darkness. He was in his village after the massacre, the buildings were in complete ruins, the burn marks could still be seen and there was absolutely nobody there. It was just him surrounded by the remainder of his village. His eyes didn't turn red at the scene though he already knew that even if he returned to his village it would be in shambles. As he walked around he remembered how everything used to be. He visited his house and went to his room that was no roofless and covered in dust. He shifted through his shelves and found that all his books were still there including the one about the outside world that he and Pairo used to read. He took it out of the shelf and rubbed off the dust. Looking through it was painful but he continued to sift through it and he remembered what he and Pairo used to talk about on the page. He kept turning but then stopped at a page, which someone seemed to have spilt something on it.

_~ Flashback ~_

_"Come on Pairo!" Kurapika called out to his friend and waved the book the hunter Sheila had given them._

_"I'm coming." Pairo reassured him and joined him under the tree._

_Once Pairo was beside him he opens the book onto the page they were last at then turned to the new one. This time is was about some mythical creature called 'The loch ness monster'._

_"Eh? But didn't dinosaurs die out like a billion years ago?!" Kurapika says as she refers to the resemblance between the loch ness monster and the dinosaurs he read about on previous pages._

_"That's because it's not a dinosaur, stupid."_

_Kurapika looked up from the book and saw a girl dangling upside down in front of him._

_"Gah!" Kurapika dropped the book in shock. "I told you not to do that!"_

_The girl he was referring to flipped off the branch and landed on her perfectly on her feet then picked up the book off the floor._

_"Give it back!" Kurapika stood up and attempted to take the book away from her._

_"Why you let Pairo look at it." She turns around and moves the book away from him._

_"Yeah but not when he has a popsicle." Kurapika points to the popsicle in her mouth, which was now hovering dangerously over the book._

_"Relax it's not going to fall." She tells him when she realises what he was freaking out about._

_"Yes it will!" Kurapika tries to grab the book again._

_"No it won't!" She pushes him back and moves the book further away._

_"This isn't going to end well…" Pairo sits there and watched his friends fight._

_"If you give it to me, you can still look at it!" Kurapika tries reasoning with her._

_"Then why don't you just let me hold it and you look on?!" She responds back only to have the popsicle fall out of her mouth and onto the open page. "Ah."_

_"Don't 'ah' me!" Kurapika takes advantage of her moment of hesitation and takes the book from her and carefully removed the popsicle from the page. _

_Luckily the page hadn't ripped just wet and sticky. _

_"See this is why I told you to give it back to me!" Kurapika yells angrily and shows the damage to his irresponsible friend only to find her crouched down on the ground._

_"M-my popsicle!" She cried out with tears in the corner of her eyes._

_Kurapika could only face palm at the scene._

_~ Flashback End ~ _

He remembered being really so angry that he didn't talk to her for three whole days, which now he has come to regret. She may have been a little annoying and crazy but she was his friend and he wished he could've spent more time with her and Pairo.

**_Crash! _**

His door was smashed open.

*"Mi-tsu-ke-ta." The person he had killed appeared at the door with a massive grin on his face.

"You!" his eyes immediately glowed red. "How are you here?!" He questions him harshly. He shouldn't be here after all he, he had killed him that night in Yorkshin, it's impossible for him to be alive and in front of him now but it looks like the logic doesn't apply here as another one of his victims from that night appeared through the door.

"Stop it Uvo, remember why we're here." The woman named Paku put her hand on her companion and stopped him before he jumped him.

"She's right." A familiar voice that sent shivers down his spine came from behind her. "We're here to make him suffer."

"Kuroro Lucifer!" He eyes glowed to the brightest red possible but only for a brief moment as he remembered that he had sealed his nen.

"Ho…" The leader of the spiders starts as he noticed the sudden spike mellow out. "I wouldn't let your guard down if I were you." He got out his book and summoned his indoor fish.

_'He can use his nen?!'_ Kurapika shouted in his mind but he didn't have much time to think anymore as all three spiders were now launching an attack on him in his own room.

Uvo ran up and jumped above him. "Big Bang Impact!" He slammed his fist covered with nen and ruptured the entire floor of the house. Kurapika had been able to jump back and dodge it. Seeing the damage to his house he had jumped higher than necessary to exit through the room through the missing roof but Kuroro wasn't going to allow it. The indoor fish from behind him swam its way towards him ready to bite off his flesh making him use his chains to propel back into his room and avoid the fish. Before he even landed, Paku had started shooting at him, which caught him off guard and let Kuroro kick him right in the gut hard enough for him to cough up a little blood.

"Gah!" The kick sent him flying backwards, smashing through the wall and tumbling out of the room until he was stopped by another wall.

He struggled just to get up and Kuroro decided to bring it upon himself to help him up… by pulling his hair. "Ah!" He shut his eyes from the pain and when he opened his eyes he found a barrel pointed at his face.

"See you on the other side."

He could only dangle helplessly as he watched Paku pull the trigger and her the sound of a bullet being shot. He braced himself for the blow but instead of a bullet in his head, he got a hard slap in the face.

"Ow!" He grabbed his right cheek that was now stinging but to his surprise that was the only place that was hurting.

_'Huh?'_

He took a quick scan of his body and found no injures and his clothes weren't even ripped.

"Kurapika!"

"Gon?" He looked down at his friend who had just hugged him.

"Do you know how worried we were?!" He lifted his head up towards the voice and saw Leorio along with Killua and Hanzo.

"What happened?"

He was so confused. One second he was in his village getting his butt kicked by the spiders he had brought down in York Shin and the next second he was back at the exam site surrounded by his friends.

"You were stuck in an illusion, stupid." A voice behind him decided to inform him and when he turned around he saw Sakura.

_'Illusion?'_

The whole thing happening in his mind would explain why he wasn't injured at all despite the beat down he got. But he couldn't help but feel very disturbed; it all had felt so real. His village… his house…

"Oi!" Maya snapped him out of his reverie. "Aren't you going to thank Sakura for helping you?"

_'For helping…' _He tried to recall what it was that she had helped him with and when he couldn't, the stinging feeling in his face made him realise what she did.

"Did you slap me?"

"You can't prove that!" Sakura shouted at the accusation.

"You know it was a good thing that you slapped him right? You snapped him out of the illusion." Chase reminded her.

"Besides we all saw you did it."

"Oh yeah haha... But there's no need to thank me, I've sort of been wanting for a while now." Sakura admits

"What do you mean you've been wanting to do it?! What has Kurapika ever done to you?!" Leorio questions her angrily, offended at Sakura's confession.

"That's none of your business." Sakura answers with a smile as if what she had just said wasn't rude at all and before Leorio could get another word in she was already out earshot.

"I swear the next time I see her I'm going to give her a piece of my mind!" Leorio declares.

"Good luck with that." Maya says knowing what would happen if he was actually stupid enough to do that to Sakura.

"By the way you owe us." Chase tells Leorio and he meant it.

With that both of them took off after Sakura who had probably already reached the finish line by now.

"We better get going too."

"I agree."

Gon nods in agreement and he, Killua and Hanzo sped off as well.

"So… what did you see that made you so riled up?" Leorio enquires with all seriousness in which Kurapika could only sigh.

Seriously hasn't he known him long enough to know that there was only one thing could get him so riled up.

"Take a guess."

Without letting Leorio take an actual guess, Kurapika left and headed for the finish line like the others. Leorio was left dumbfounded as he had been left without getting a chance to respond, again.

* * *

***Mitsuketa = found you (I thought it fit better ^^)**

**A/N: Mmm... I really don't know what to say since I don't think I need to explain anything and I already gave my life story so... yeah. I hope it wasn't to bad and you were able to enjoy it, I know my writing has a lot of flaws but I really like writing stories so thanks baring with me and reading the stuff from ma brain (-'3'-) - does this look like a chicken face or is it just me...**

**P.S. Since I'm free from school for about 2 weeks! I'm going to try get out a new chapter during this time so wish me luck :)**


	5. Chapter 4: Breaks x and x Idiots

**A/N: I'm so sorry! This is why I can never have deadlines... ugh the failure I feel right now I got a myanimelist account and when I put in all my anime I found out that I've watched more than 100 days worth. I got really excited and literally just binge-watched a whole ton of anime the whole holidays. I think I watched about a week worth of anime, which is a lot in 2 weeks if you really think about it. I did sleep good hours and do other things I needed to do but yeah... then school started. Anyway I'm really sorry and I'm going to stop talking... typing now.**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Breaks x and x Idiots**

By the time Kurapika and Leorio had reached the finish line or what he assumed was the finish line taking into account that it was finally the end of the field and the collapsed hunters laying on the floor.

"About time you got here."

He sees his friends approaching him and notices that a couple of people were missing.

"If you're looking for Sakura she said she had things she needed to do and Chase was dragged away by Maya somewhere." Gon informs him.

"What thing-"

Hanzo gasped in realisation in the midst of his question. "She must be doing her other job!"

"Oh yeah didn't we find out that she was that famous idol or something." Gon says as he vaguely remembers their meeting.

"I'm starting to doubt whether that chick is actually an idol." Killua comments.

They all couldn't help but silently agree with Killua as they had already experienced a day with her and seen all her… quirks.

"Well I believe in her!" Hanzo declares before he get's out a camera and disappears.

"Oi! Wait for me!" Leorio shouts out and runs after Hanzo with his phone in hand since he didn't have a camera.

"Do they even know where she is?"

"Probably not."

"Let's go find her too!" Gon suggests excitedly not wanting to be left out.

"No way I don't want to waste my day off looking for her." Killua complains.

"Day off?" Kurapika asks confused although it does explain why the others had already left before he even got to the finish line.

"The examiner told us that the next phase will start tomorrow morning so we could do whatever we want until then."

"Is that so." That does make sense now that he thinks about it they had been running the whole night without any sleep but if the examiners are nice enough to give them a break the next phase must be tough.

"Yep so I'm going to eat as much chocolate as I can!" Killua announces and runs off to find some sweet treats.

"Killua!" Gon calls out after his friend but Killua doesn't stop running. "Ah! That jerk is trying to leave me behind!" Gon completely discards the idea of finding Sakura and races angrily after Killua.

It didn't take long for Gon to catch up to Killua but of course Killua had no intention of leaving him behind in the first place. He knew that Killua had slowed his pace so that Gon would catch up to him quickly.

"Ah." As he watched Gon hug Killua and yell out "got ya!" in the distance he realised that everyone had left to do their own thing and he was standing in the middle of the field all alone looking like a complete loner…

"I guess I'll go get something to eat."

* * *

Meanwhile Hanzo and Leorio had found Sakura but as Hanzo predicted she was right in the middle of a concert.

"Ugh! How are we going to get in?!" Leorio yells over to Hanzo over the raging crowd in front of them.

"I don't know about you but I'm going to use this!" Hanzo shows Leorio his ticket.

"Where did you get that?!"

"I pre-ordered it about 7 months ago!" Hanzo triumphantly informs him.

"7 months?!"

"Yeah, otherwise they'd be sold out."

"Sheesh! Is she that good?" Leorio asked shocked, as he couldn't imagine that …quirky girl being that famous of an idol.

"Of course! Now if you'll excuse me… Sakura-chan!" Hanzo shows his ticket to the security guard then races through the crowd, knocking out people that were in his way.

**~ Music starts playing ~**

"So is everyone ready?" Sakura shouts from on stage to the crowd, which sends the crowd into frenzy.

"Hai!" Hanzo along with the others in the crowd shouted back.

"Well then, here I go!"

**~ Sakura starts singing ~**

"You're the best!" I spent the day with her you know?" Hanzo yells out and brags to the random person next to him.

Whilst Hanzo had been admitted entry into the concert, Leorio was still stuck outside with the security guards.

"Can't you guys just let me in? I happen to know her." Leorio tries to talk to the security guards into letting him in.

"No ticket. No entry" One of the guards simple states with a stoic look on his face.

"No you don't understand. I mean she literally just spent the whole day with me." Leorio tries to further explain his connection to Sakura.

The guards just looked at each other before bursting out in laughter.

"Ahahaha! Yeah and she kissed me!" One of the guards says mockingly.

"I'm serious! Just ask her!"

"Yeah, yeah we will." The guard tells Leorio sarcastically as he starts pushing him away from the gate.

But Leorio wasn't about to let himself get pushed around so he used his nen to sucker punch them both in the chin and knock them out.

"That'll teach them." Leorio remarks with a smug grin, although it was quickly erased from his face when he turns around to see Kurapika looking at him with something akin to disappointment.

"Really?"

"What they pushed me first, besides why are you here? I thought you weren't interested in idols." Leorio tries to shift the topic off him.

"First, I ever said I wasn't, and second I was going to get something to eat before I saw you do that." Kurapika explains, referring to Leorio sucker punching the guards, which was a complete waste of nen in his eyes.

"Eh, so you are interested in idols, I knew you were a man!" Leorio puts Kurapika in a headlock and rubs his fist into his hair, jokingly.

"What do you mean by 'I knew you were a man'?" Kurapika glares at Leorio a little and manoeuvres his way out of the headlock. "And yeah, I happen to enjoy listening to music, is that so wrong?"

"So you only like the music, not the idol?"

"Well it's not that…" Kurapika trails off as he catches a glimpse of Sakura on stage. She looks like she was having a lot of fun singing up there and he had to admit, this image of her fit her way better than a hunter. Why did she become a hunter anyway? She said that she didn't like fighting and she doesn't seem like she needs the money, being a famous idol and all… so why?

Kurapika couldn't help but ponder on the question his mind had stumbled upon and he completely forgot he was answering Leorio's question.

"pika… Kurapika!" Leorio claps his hands right in front of his face to snap him back to reality.

"Yeah, what?"

"You were saying 'it's not that' then drifted of into dreamland." Leorio reminds him.

"Huh? Oh right, what was the question again?"

"Just forget it and go in already, the concert might be over already!" Leorio gives up and drags him through the gates.

"Wait! Leorio, I never said that I wanted to go in!" Kurapika yells at Leorio who was currently trying to make his way through the crowd to the front.

"You said you liked music."

"But I… oh, never mind." Kurapika decides to just go along with him as he notices that they were already more than half way to the front.

Leorio somehow managed to get both of them to the very front where they meet Hanzo who was dancing around excitedly to the music. He didn't notice them at all even when Leorio tapped him on the shoulder, in fact Hanzo unknowingly made Leorio smack himself in the face. That action made Leorio really mad so seemed to have made it his mission to not only get Hanzo's attention but also annoy him so much that he wasn't able to concentrate on the concert. He was able to get Hanzo's attention but Hanzo wasn't about to let himself get distracted and tries to punch Leorio without taking his eyes of Sakura. The people around the backed away, but only a little as they wanted to remain as close to the stage as possible. Kurapika just sweat dropped at the scene before shifting his eyes to the person on the stage.

After watching Sakura singing and dancing on stage, he started to understand why she would be popular. Her voice was good, her songs were nice to listen to and he had to admit she wasn't bad to look at, in fact he would say she was… cute. Although he couldn't help but feel a bit of sadness as he watched her singing and dancing so happily up on stage. He was reminded of his friend back at his village that had told him her dream of being the number one idol in the world. That should be her up there…

_'Ah! What am I thinking!' _He shouted at himself for thinking such things. It wasn't Sakura's fault for being an idol and it's not like if she wasn't an idol, that his friend would've been in her position. It just wasn't possible now.

But even with that thought in mind he still couldn't bear to look at Sakura anymore without feeling that way, so he kept his head down for the rest of the concert.

* * *

After the concert was over, everyone started filing out of the concert space disappointedly since it was over. Kurapika, Leorio and Hanzo decided to remain just outside the gates and take a breather.

"That was awesome!" Hanzo shouted and shot his hands in the air.

"She was better than I thought." Leorio adds.

"Of course she was and how did you guys get in?" Hanzo questions both Leorio and Kurapika, remembering that Leorio didn't have a ticket and he doubted that Kurapika had any.

"We used our hunter skills to sneak in." Leorio informs Hanzo proudly, although he really shouldn't be.

"What! That's so not fair, do you know how much those tickets cost." Hanzo whines as he recalls the price. "Well I suppose it doesn't matter after all I'm happy to pay any amount to see my Sakura-chan!"

"What about me?" Sakura suddenly appeared behind them.

"Gah! Where did you come from?!" Leorio spluttered, immediately turning around.

"Isn't that supposed to be my line? You guys are in front of my concert." Sakura brings up the point Leorio seemed to have forgotten.

"To see you sing of course!" Hanzo shouts happily. "I still can't believe I'm talking to you!" He added so excitedly that Kurapika could've sworn he saw huge sparkled in his eyes.

"Um ok… anyway, did you guys like my concert?"

"It was alright." Leorio says, earning a punch from Hanzo, though Sakura didn't seem to get offended by Leorio's feedback and turned to Kurapika, hoping for a good comment from him.

"It was nice." Kurapika felt a little awkward in saying this since he had been thinking a lot of negative things and had practically had his head down for most of it. "By the way, don't you have other work?" He tries to change the subject so she wouldn't have the chance to ask him further questions.

"Not really, the only reason I even did this concert was because I was in the area." She answers him nonchalantly. "People just set things up for me at random. I've never actually said yes to any of them but they set things up for me anyways."

"Isn't that a really bad way of doing things and how does the ticket thing work then?"

"Well the tickets are valid anywhere and I find it easier this way. I'm pretty busy with hunter things and I don't know where the job will take me. Besides I don't like set things, I'm a more 'go with the flow' kind of person." She explains.

"Ok now I believe you're the same person." Leorio says after hearing her explanation and seeing how it reflected her behaviour in the previous phases.

"What kind of hunter are you?" Kurapika asks as that part peaked his interest.

"I'm a blacklist hunter."

"Why?!" Hanzo yells, as he didn't want his idol doing such a dangerous job.

"Why not? There are bad people in this world who need to be caught."

"But that doesn't mean you have to do it. There are a lot of other blacklist hunters."

"Well there are some criminals only I can catch." Sakura says, her eyes turning serious.

"You don't mean the… Genei Ryodan?" Leorio cuts in with a question that catches Kurapika's entire attention.

"Huh, of course not! You've got to be absolutely insane to take on those monsters!" Sakura shouts with exaggeration.

"Hear that Kurapika? She thinks you're _absolutely_ insane." Leorio nudges him.

"Don't tell me you actually tried to catch them?" Sakura asks him with more concern than shock.

"Didn't you hear about Yorkshin?"

"That was you? Why did you do that?" Now she sounded more angry than worried. "You could've died!"

"You've heard about the massacre of the kurata clan right? Well I happen to be the only survivor and it's my duty to avenge my brethren." Kurapika answers swiftly.

Kurapika's prompt answer causes Sakura to become silent. There were a lot of things she could've said back but with the things the way they are now she couldn't possibly say them.

"Well, the important thing is that he's alive and he's focusing on finding his brethren's eyes right now so…" Leorio cuts in, trying to get away from the topic as soon as possible. He gestures to Sakura to stop talking about this by making swiping movements in front of his neck and shaking his head.

"I get it!" Sakura says, a little more forceful than she meant to. "Sorry, I just… don't like the thought of a friend dying."

"…You consider me a friend?" Kurapika asks doubtfully, after all they had only met yesterday.

_'__Crap!' _Sakura realizes her mistake. She quickly tries to think of a way to fix it, only to find out that she didn't need to say anything.

"Oh, so you're one of those people." Leorio comments.

"Eh?"

"You know, the people who thinks everyone they meet as their friend."

"Sure."

"So does that mean you think of me as you friend?" Hanzo asks excitedly.

"Um… I guess."

"Yes!"

"What's with all the yelling?" Killua suddenly appears.

"Did something good happen?" Gon pops out from behind Killua.

"We're friends now!" Hanzo announces and puts his arm around Sakura.

"No fair, I want to be friends too!" Gon jumps towards them and hugs Sakura.

"Both of you get off, you're hurting her." Leorio tries to pry them off Sakura.

"I can't breathe!" Sakura yells out as Hanzo was now squeezing her shoulders whilst Gon was hugging her waist very tightly, squeezing the air out of her and Leorio was only making them squeeze tighter.

This didn't last long though since they all lost their balance and fell to the ground. They all looked at each other and started laughing.

"Idiots." Killua says with a smile.

Kurapika felt compelled to smile himself. He was relieved that the conversation with Sakura about him trying to catch the Genei Ryodan, he didn't mind telling her about it but she seemed to act how Gon, Killua and Leorio did. While he was grateful to have such caring friends, he felt that it was better if she didn't get involved in his affairs.

"So when you guys are finished, how about we all go get something to eat?" Kurapika suggest, remembering he didn't get the chance to earlier and he doubted the others did either.

"Sure." Hanzo says as he picks himself off the floor then extends a hand out to Sakura.

"Sounds good." Leorio agrees.

"Will there be chocolate?" Killua asks, imaginary cat ears popping out.

"Killua you just ate a whole bunch earlier." Gon points out to him.

"You can never have enough chocolate." Sakura cuts in.

"I like you a little more by you saying that."

"Let's take a look around town for a good restaurant and I'm sure they'll all have desserts." Kurapika proposes to which, everyone agrees to.

They start walking around the town, looking at the menus and looking through the windows to see what kind of restaurant it was before deciding to go in. They looked at a couple of restaurants but not everyone agreed on it so they continued their search deeper into town until they arrive at a certain café.

"Gah!" Gon yells and backs away from the window of the café.

"What's wrong?" Killua asks but doesn't bother waiting for an answer and looks into the café himself.

When he sees what probably shocked Gon, he doesn't back away but he also doesn't say anything and just stares. This made everyone else curious so they all decide to follow Killua's example and look through the window.

"Whoa, is that?" Hanzo starts.

"I think it is." Leorio responds.

"What do you people think you're doing?" A voice from behind them spoke.

"Gah!" They all yelled when they had turned around and saw Maya behind them.

"How did you- you were sitting over there just a second ago."

"She used her nen ability." Chase appears beside them.

"Gah! Stop doing that!" Leorio shouts at Chase angrily.

"You know I just walked here right?" Chase says confused as to why he was shocked at him. "Anyway, why don't we take this inside, you guys are kind of causing a scene." Chase hints to the people around them who were all staring.

"I'm very sorry for the inconvenience." Kurapika apologizes to the people then quickly guides his friends inside.

* * *

Luckily there was a vacant big table inside and they were able to change tables in accordance to the number of people without any problems.

"So, what were you guys doing here?"

"What does it look like? We're having lunch." Maya answers, a little annoyed that they had interrupted her lunchtime.

"That doesn't mean you eat each others faces!" Gon shouts with flailing arms.

"He does know what kissing is right?" Chase asks Killua who only shrugs in response.

"We're dating, so of course we kiss." Maya says candidly.

"You two are dating?!" Everyone yells out in shock.

"Why are you shocked?" Chase refers to Sakura.

"I felt like it was the right reaction." Sakura shrugs.

"Anyway, what's wrong with us dating." Maya asks, irritation clear in her voice.

"Well it's just that you're… and he's…" Leorio bravely starts only to receive a death glare from Maya, which worsened with every word he said. "…Nothing."

"Why don't we order some food?" Chase suggests while trying to calm Maya down.

"Sure."

They all told Chase their individual orders who in turn places in their orders for them to a waiter.

When their food arrived at the table, they all couldn't help but stare at the cake in the middle.

"Stop staring at my lunch." Sakura picks up the cake and places it in front of her.

"Are you serious? You can't have that for lunch." Leorio states incredulously.

"Hey, I don't tell you how to live." Sakura retorts.

"But still…" Kurapika begins but is stopped by Chase who puts a hand on his shoulder and shakes his head.

*Flash*

"Did you just take a photo of me?" Sakura asks Hanzo who wasn't trying to hide his camera at all.

"Yep, you're so cute!" Hanzo replies and continues taking more photos from all kinds of different angles.

"Oi, send those to me too." Leorio says.

"Why?"

"So I can sell them." Leorio says without shame, he could feel the money already.

"Don't bother, people won't believe that it's me." Sakura informs him.

"What, why not?!"

"Haven't you noticed how I'm not even wearing a disguise yet no one has come up to me, with the exception of this guy." Sakura points at Hanzo who was still taking photos even with this information, since he had no intention of selling any of his photos of Sakura anyway.

"Now that you mention it… why is that?"

"It's just in a person's nature not to be able to recognize something if they are seen in a different circumstance. This works well for me so I just go with it."

"That was a deep explanation."

"Yeah well, that's just how it is, honestly people can be so stupid sometimes." Sakura stabs her fork down into her cake, which made Kurapika jump a little.

Why did it feel like that was directed at him?

"Okay… so anyway, what do you guys think the next phase will be?" Chase decides to clear the air by asking a question that relates to all of them.

"Oh, not this again." Leorio groans.

"Did I say something wrong?" Chase asked, confused as to what part of his question could've possibly make Leorio look so dejected.

"No, it's just at our Hunter Exam, that question was also asked and some idiot told us what he thought. We all believed him only to find out he was completely wrong. I ended up studying for nothing!" Leorio shouts angrily.

"I don't think writing out cheat notes counts as studying…"

"I still read the things before writing it down." Leorio defends himself.

"Anyway, what's your nen ability?" Killua disregards Leorio and turns to Maya, still wondering how she was able to sneak up on him, outside the shop earlier.

"Hah? Why should I tell you-"

"Maya can create portals to anywhere she's been before or to anyone she's come into contact with." Sakura cuts in and answers for her friend.

"Sakura! Don't just tell him!" Maya yells at Sakura, as she did not want potential enemies to know her abilities.

"What, he's gonna find out later anyway."

"How does she make the portals?"

"Oh, she-"

Maya stops Sakura from revealing any more information on her abilities by stuffing a huge chunk of her steak into Sakura's mouth.

"Gah… meat, it burns!" Sakura makes choking actions before falling off her chair.

"…Don't tell me she doesn't eat meat."

"Honestly… I have no idea."

"That sounds like a really handy ability." Kurapika says to Maya, deciding to ignore what just happened with Sakura.

"Thanks." Maya thanks him for the compliment, although he could tell she didn't really care about his opinion.

Seeing as how well it worked with Maya, Killua tries to ask about Chase's abilities but immediately received a 'don't you even try' look from him, which was surprisingly terrifying.

"Why don't you guys tell us your nen abilities now, since me and Maya have already told you ours." Sakura proposes when she had recovered from eating meat by balancing the taste out with a lot of cake.

"Huh? What makes you think that just because you told us your abilities, we'll tell you our-"

"I have the ability to my nen around my fist and make it a super punch and I can also make blades from two fingers and release a bunch of aura from my palm. I thought of it using *Janken!" Gon answers without hesitation.

"Gon-"

"Killua can change his aura into electricity, Leorio punches one thing but make it so it comes from a totally different place and Kurapika has these five cool chains that each have their own ability and he also gets crazy powerful when his eyes turn red-"

"Gon!"

"Ah." Gon covers his mouth with his hands and looks over to Kurapika with an apologetic look.

"It's fine, it's not like my scarlet eyes I'm keeping my scarlet eyes a secret." Kurapika reassures Gon.

"Whoa, wait. Aren't scarlet eyes those creepy red eyes that are worth over 2 billion jenny?"

"2 billion?!" Maya yells out in shock but sits back down when she the attention her outburst received. "Where did you get that kind of cash?"

"I didn't buy them, I was born with them. I'm a kurata."

"A what?"

"They were the massacred clan mentioned in the last question of the second phase of the exam." Chase tries to act knowledgeable by mentioning the only place he's heard about the 'kurata'

"Oh Chase, it's cute to see you try and look like you know stuff when you don't." Sakura, who had remained silent, finally spoke up.

"Oh and you do?"

"Well, she did get the last question right, which shows she knows more than any of you." Maya brings up a good point.

"Wasn't that just a guess?" Kurapika asks, a little offended that Maya said there was someone else who knew more about the kurata, when he was the only _actual _kurata.

"Yeah, it was." Sakura says and abruptly gets up from her chair. "Any who, I'm going to get more cake."

"Geh, how did you finish the whole cake already?!" Leorio says, dumbfounded at the sight of her clean empty plate.

"Don't doubt the cake master." Sakura proclaims and gladly leaves the table to avoid further questioning on the topic she never wanted brought up ever again.

Although honestly, she didn't know whether to be relieved or seriously pissed Kurapika hadn't noticed yet. Was he seriously that much of an idiot to not notice such suspicious signs?

_'__Well it's not like I really want him to find out…'_ She sighs and stares at the array of cakes in the display cases at the counter.

It's better for Kurapika to remain oblivious, for both her sake and his.

* * *

*** Jaken = Rock, paper, scissors game**

**A/N: Ok, so this chapter was really just a break chapter. I felt like the characters needed a break between phase three and four and I don't know why my mind didn't realise that I could've just skipped the time and go straight to phase four but yeah... genius. By the time I realised I was already halfway through so I was just like 'uhhh... but I don't want my effort to be wasted!' and decided to finish it anyway. **

**I ended up using this chapter to mention their nen abilities because it's been a while since I've watch Hunter x Hunter and my knowledge on it is starting to get rusty. Basically this is what I think are their abilities are when you sum it up. I don't know Hanzo's abilities so I'll probably just say he strengthens his ninja attacks with nen or something and I haven't thought of Chase's ability yet... well i thought up some ideas but I'm not sure which one to use.**

**Again sorry if this seemed all over the place and rushed. I don't know what I was writing, I was kind of just winging it because like I said this ended up being a break chapter with no major events or stuff like that but I hope you liked it anyway :)**

**P.S. I didn't say what songs Sakura sing because my taste in music is very... random and I thought it was better you just insert your own songs.**


	6. Chapter 5: Battle x of x Nen

A/N: Yay done! I think this is the fastest I've updated in a while ^^

* * *

Chapter 5: Battle x of x Nen

All the hunters who had passed the first three phases were given lodgings for the night. It had been privately booked with all the passing hunters' names so the hunters who failed wouldn't be able to sneak in. The night had been pretty uneventful but they all knew that it was the morning they really had to worry about.

When the morning came, they were directed to the site of the fourth phase, which turned out to be an arena.

"Ok, is everyone here?" Beans asked through the microphone and when no one objected he continued to explain the fourth phase. "As you might have all guessed, the fourth phase will feature battles. The winner is decided when a person loses consciousness or if someone surrenders and the examiner for this phase will be-" He was stopped midsentence crashed down to the ground in front of him.

"Hohoho that would be me."

"Chairman!"

The mutterings and whispers began amongst the crowd but soon stopped as the answer to the question on everyone's minds was answered.

"To put it simply, I'm here to make sure there are no unnecessary deaths."

"In this phase each hunter will be paired with another hunter with the same nen type. You are allowed to use other weapons as well as your nen abilities." Beans grabbed the microphone back from Netero and continues with his explanation. "Each of you will only fight one battle so you will only have one chance to win." Beans proceeds to reveal six boxes. "I will decided the pairs by pulling out two names at a time from each of these boxes."

The first two names Beans pulled out were Gon and Leorio.

"What we have to fight each other?!"

"You're just bitter because you know Gon will kick your ass."

"Killua!"

"What, we're all thinking it."

Everyone goes silent and tries to avoid eye contact with Leorio.

"I'll remember this!"

A couple other pairs were pulled out before Beans pulled Killua and Chase.

Neither of them objected with the match up but a certain someone in the back did.

"Che, I wanted a chance at my little apple." They all knew whom that voice belonged to and a big shiver ran down Killua's spine.

"Good thing I don't have to fight him."

The next people in their group to be picked were Maya and Hanzo.

"So you're a conjurer." Kurapika comments on Hanzo's nen type, based on Maya's nen type.

"Oh yeah, you never told us you nen abilities did you." Gon and the others realize.

"Well ninjas are supposed to keep their techniques secret."

"Great so he knows my abilities but I don't know his." Maya glares at Sakura.

"Haha… at least I didn't tell him your wea-"

Maya stopped Sakura from saying anymore by pegging the closest object, which happened to be a small rock, at her. It hit her right on the forehead.

The last pair Beans picked out was Kurapika and Sakura.

"Are you okay?" Kurapika offers a hand to Sakura who was still on the ground, rubbing the red bump on her forehead.

"Ow… yeah." Sakura gladly accepts his hand.

"At least now you're both even." Killua refers to the physical handicap Maya has given Sakura in comparison to the knowledge handicap Sakura gave to Maya.

Gon and Leorio's battle was up first. They both stayed in the arena whilst the others and the rest of the hunters went up to the stands. Netero stayed in the arena as well whilst Beans went up to the announcer's box located in the middle of the stands.

"Hohoho you boys ready?"

"Yeah."

"Let's do this!"

"Hohoho alright then, on my signal ready, set… fight!" Netero jumps out of the way of Gon and Leorio.

"Just so you know Gon, I'm not going easy on you just because we're friends."

"Same here."

"Well then here I go!"

Leorio punches the ground beneath him and uses his nen to make it so his punch comes out from the ground underneath Gon. Gon easily dodges the punch by jumping back but Leorio had expected this and punches the ground with his other hand. This time his punch came out from one of the pieces of the floor that had been scattered around Gon from his first punch. His fist hit Gon straight across the face and sent him flying to the ground but Leorio didn't stopped there. He kept pummeling the ground beneath him and making them come out from the pieces of the floor around Gon.

"That was a smart move." Kurapika comments.

"What do you mean?"

"Instead of creating the first warp hole on the surface of the floor, Leorio created it under the floor so that when he punched up the floor would shatter."

"Oh, I see."

"Hmph, Gon won't let this do him in." Killua states with confidence in his best friend. "Come on Gon! Get out of that and beat his ass!"

Just like Killua said, Gon was able to stop Leorio's rain of attacks by focusing his aura into his hand and catching one of Leorio's punches just before it hit him. He then grabbed hold of Leorio's wrist and pulled him through the warp hole. Once Leorio was all the way though, Gon went on to gather his aura in his leg and kick him straight in the gut and send him flying across the arena and into the wall.

"Gah." The kick was so hard that Leorio was now stuck in the wall. When he was finally able to crack open one of his eyes, he saw Gon preparing for his signature attack.

"First is rock… Janken…Pa!

Aura was projected from the palm of Gon's hand; Leorio covered his body with aura for protection but it wasn't enough and he was smashed further into the wall behind him. The wall had been smashed so hard that it shatters to the point where it was unable to support Leorio anymore and he was sent falling down to the ground unconscious.

"Gon is the winner as Leorio is unable to fight."

Gon goes over to Leorio to wake him up "Are you okay?"

"Ugh…yeah." Leorio slowly starts to come around.

"Sorry Leorio, I didn't mean to hit you that hard."

"What, that was nothing! Don't worry about it!" Leorio reassures Gon even though his legs were still shaking.

* * *

It was time for Killua and Chase's battle.

"Don't worry I'll end this quickly."

"Better not get your hopes up."

"Ready, set… fight!"

Killua immediately snuck up behind Chase and went in for a chop but Chase notices him and turns around to smacks his hand away before jumping back to put some distance between them. Seeing Chase trying to distance himself, Killua gathered his aura, which he transmuted into electricity, to his hands then slams his palms down on the ground to release the electricity through the floor. The electricity coursed through the floor, destroying a path directly to Chase. He jumps up in the air to avoid getting electrocuted and gathers his own aura to his hands, which he transmuted into fire and formed into the shape of a ball. He combined the two and threw it down at Killua. Killua dodges the fireball by side stepping to the side then he threw thunderbolts at Chase and since Chase was still in mid air, he wasn't able to move out of the way and got hit dead on.

"Agh!" Chase fell down from the sky with smoke trailing behind him and crashed into the floor. He laid on the ground, still twitching at times from the leftover electricity still coursing through his body.

Seeing this Killua turned around to leave the arena as he thought he had won the battle already, but he was soon proven wrong when he steps on the spot where Chase's previous fireball had hit and was immediately engulfed in flames.

"Killua!" Gon shouted from the stands.

Killua tried moving away from the spot where the fire first appeared but that didn't stop the fire from burning him.

"It's pointless to run." Chase tells Killua as he pushes himself off the ground. "The fire will continue to burn you where ever you go."

"What does he mean by that?" Kurapika asks Sakura.

"Use gyo and you'll see."

Kurapika did as Sakura told and gathered his aura to his eyes. He looked over to Killua and saw a barrier type thing surrounding him and the fire.

"He's using his aura to trap the fire and Killua together."

"Ping pong. When Killua stepped on that spot, Chase released the aura he stored in that spot and transmuted half into fire to cover Killua then the rest to trap him inside with the fire."

"Is there any way for him to get out?"

"Well, he could've released a stronger aura than Chase's from his entire body but I don't think that's possible now."

Kurapika confirms Sakura's assumption by looking over to Killua who was now on his knees, struggling for air.

"Hmph, that's what the kid gets for being cocky." Maya remarks.

Not long after, Killua wasn't able to stand being burned any longer and collapsed on the ground. Chase released his nen and falls flat on his back, Killua had made him use a lot more nen than he thought.

Chase was deemed the winner as Killua lost consciousness first.

* * *

Maya and Hanzo entered the arena.

"I'm telling you now I'm not going to go easy on you just because Sakura-chan's friend."

"And I'm not going easy on you just because I feel sorry for your baldness."

"Wha-this was a choice!"

Sparks were flying before the starting signal was even given and when it was, all hell broke loose. "Ready, set… start!"

Hanzo immediately revealed his hidden blade on his arm whilst Maya took out her scythe. They both charged at each other and clashed in the middle. Hanzo was superior in strength and so he was able to push Maya's scythe out of the way and kick her in the side. Maya blocked the kick with her arm but the blow still sent her sliding across the ground. She was able to stand her ground and throw her scythe at Hanzo, who easily dodged her attack but that was what she was aiming for. When Hanzo sidestepped to the side she was right there to give him a kick to the face. Hanzo was able to block her kick with his arm but that didn't stop her from continuing her barrage of attacks. After her kick was blocked, she followed with a punch but once again Hanzo blocked her attack by grabbing her fist before it reached his face.

Maya continued throwing punches and kicks, which were continually blocked but that didn't faze her as this was going exactly according to plan. As Hanzo was concentrating on blocking her attacks, he completely forgot about the scythe she had thrown at the start, which had boomeranged itself around and was set on a direct course at him. By the time he noticed the scythe was already really close to him and Maya wasn't about to let him get away. She grabbed his arms and held him in place and waited for her scythe to hit.

"Looks like this is the end."

The scythe finally seemed to have connected with Hanzo but one thing was off, there was no blood coming out from him at all.

_'__How?' _Maya peeked from behind Hanzo and found out the reason why there was no blood. Hanzo had conjured up a chain from his back and circled it around her scythe _'This can't be-'_

Hanzo ended the battle by hitting the back of Maya's neck, which caused her eyes to go blank and collapse on the ground.

"Maya!" Sakura yelled up from the stands at the sight of her friend lying face down on the ground.

"What! No! I just knocked her out-" Hanzo flailed his arms around when he sees Sakura's distressed state.

Kurapika immediately hugs Sakura before Hanzo could even finish his explanation. Sakura's eyes widened at Kurapika's actions but she quickly recovered from the shock.

"Uh…yeah, I just don't like the sight of my friend like that is all." She gave him a smile to show him she was fine. "Anyway… how long do you think you're going to keep hugging me?"

"Eh? Oh, sorry!" He quickly let go and stepped back from her.

"Pff, why're you apologizing?"

He really couldn't think of a response back to her, in fact he didn't even know why he hugged her in the first place. Why he felt like he needed to comfort her and acted on reflex.

Wait, could it be… love?

* * *

_'__No no no' _He doesn't have the time or the need for love in his life right now, and besides he was too old to fall in love at first sight. It was probably because he didn't like seeing people upset, especially if he knew them.

The final battle for the fourth phase was Kurapika against Sakura.

"Is something wrong?" Sakura asks as she had noticed Kurapika had been trying his best to avoid eye contact with her ever since he hugged her.

_'__It can't be that he finally found out, could it?!'_ Was the first thought that popped into her mind. But if he really did, he would've done something by now so that probably wasn't it. But then again it has been a quite a long time, maybe he was that kind of person now. On the other hand, she was a pretty good judge of character and he didn't seem like-

"Sakura!" Kurapika snapped her out of her reverie.

"Huh, what?" She looked over to the source of the sound, which was Kurapika and for some reason when their eyes met, he grew red and immediately looked away.

"Eh?"

"Hohoho. While I understand the two of you are at the peak of your youth, we have to start the battle." Netero cuts in "Will you guys be able to fight?"

Whilst Sakura got even more confused with the addition of Netero's words, Kurapika grew a darker shade of red.

"…Yes?" Sakura answers hesitantly as she didn't know why he would think she couldn't fight.

Netero looks over to Kurapika who had managed to calm down and nod. _'Ugh! Okay, let's just focus on the battle right now.' _He cleared his thoughts and readied himself for the upcoming battle.

"Hohoho then let the battle commence. Ready, set… fight!"

Neither of them moved from their spot when the starting signal was given. They were both not one to make the first move in a battle but Sakura had less patience than Kurapika and cracked first.

"Fine, if you're not gonna come I will." Sakura declares and conjured up her cherry blossoms petals to form a pistol, which she then proceeded to shoot Kurapika with.

Kurapika easily blocked the bullets by lodging them in between the chain he swung in front of himself. He dropped them all on the floor in front of Sakura.

"It's going to take more than that to hit me."

"Then how about this."

Sakura conjured up bullets, to reload her first pistol, along with another pistol. She shot a bullet each at Kurapika who easily blocks them again with his chain but as soon as he blocks those bullets another two immediately came his way.

_'__How?' _He blocks one with his chain and dodges the other one. In the midst of his dodge, he looks over to Sakura who was completely unarmed. At least that's what he thought until two pistols fell into her hands not even a second later.

_'__Crap!' _He jumps back evade the bullets and create some distance between them. This action also allowed him to get a clearer view of Sakura and that's when he sees that she was shooting at him with _four_ guns.

"Ahahaha not so easy blocking these is it?"

He would've gotten mad at her taunting him if not for him really struggling a lot just not to get hit. All her shots seemed to be aimed at his vital points, which was really annoying… and scary.

_'__I have to stop that crazy accurate aim of hers.'_

With that thought in mind, he jumps up in the air then slams his dowsing chain down on the ground. He had powered it up further with his aura so the chain was able to shatter the ground and send big chunks flying everywhere. _'This should take away some of her sight and decrease her accuracy.' _

Unluckily for him, his plan proved completely useless and actually ended helping Sakura instead.

As soon as Kurapika smashed the floor to bits, Sakura reverted all her pistols back to petals then reformed them into rifle. Due to the pieces of the ground in her way she wasn't able to aim for a vital spot, not she would if she could in this situation where Kurapika was completely unaware that he was a sitting duck. She opted for his right arm, which had his chains instead. When she had a clear shot to her desired target, she immediately pulled the trigger.

**Bang!**

Kurapika was only able to catch a glimpse of Sakura smirking with a rifle aimed right at him before a bullet lodged itself in his arm.

"Gah!" Kurapika gripped his bleeding arm but he wasn't given time anytime to rest as another bullet was coming his way. He was able to redirect this bullet with his chain but it still managed to nick his cheek.

He continued to redirect the following bullets, keeping the damage he received to that of shallow cuts. He waited for the moment when she needed to reload and when that moment came he swiftly extended his dowsing chain towards Sakura. At this point all the pieces of the ground had all fallen back to the ground and he was easily able to maneuver his chain all the way to her. Plus she was distracted with reloading her gun that she only noticed his chain around her arm when he tightened his grip and pulled her towards him.

"Yes! You got her now Kurapika! There's no way she can beat you at close range!" Leorio yells out, taking into account the events that happened so far.

"Hah, what are you talking about? Sakura is way better at close combat than long range combat." Chase informs him.

"Eh?"

Leorio looks back down at the fight and sees Kurapika tumbling across the floor.

"What happened?!"

"While you weren't looking, Sakura grabbed the chain pulling her towards Kurapika and pulled on it so that Kurapika would come flying towards her. Then she kicked him across the face and sent him tumbling across the ground."

"Hmph, I don't get why she didn't just conjure up a sword and end it there." Maya remarks.

"She can use a sword?"

"Yeah, I personally think that she's better with a sword than a gun."

"Eh, did she stop using it?"

"Yeah, she stopped when she learned how to control her nen and conjure things up at will."

"Why did she stop?"

"Who knows, one day she told us that 'guns were awesome' and I haven't seen her use a sword since."

"She's a very… special person isn't she." Leorio comments only to receive a punch on the head from Hanzo and Maya.

Meanwhile back in the arena, Sakura was walking up to Kurapika, who was still on the ground, to deliver the finishing blow. She bent down and went to pull him up but before she could, Kurapika's hand shot up and grabbed her arm. She wasn't that surprised by this action, it was only when her eyes landed on his eyes that made her freeze. It was faint due to the black contacts but she could still see it, the red in his eyes.

Kurapika felt Sakura approaching him and waited for her to get close enough for him to attack. Luckily for him, Sakura took it upon herself to extend her arm towards him and he gladly took the opportunity. He grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her down to his level. Their eyes met and what he saw wasn't the little shock he expected in her eyes. For some reason her eyes had contracted in what looked like fear as soon as they met with his. He didn't think much of it and took advantage of her frozen state and slammed her on the ground, reversing their roles. He held his chain at her neck as a sign of his win, it didn't technically mean it was his win but Sakura didn't seem like the type who wouldn't accept this method of loss.

"…I give up."

* * *

Phase four was now officially over and the hunters who had lost their battles started filing out of the arena.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Beans yelled out from the speakers to stop the hunters from leaving. "There is still the final phase!"

"So that has nothing to do with us."

"Hohoho but it does." Netero takes over for Beans "None of you were eliminated from the exam."

Netero's announcement caused everyone caused a lot of bewildered expressions.

"What do you mean?" Leorio was the first to ask.

"Just what I said."

"Then what was the point of this phase?" Killua asked, still annoyed at his loss.

"Well, for one it was for you to test out your nen abilities against similar opponents but it's main purpose was to set up the final phase." Netero explained to them but they were still looking at him with puzzled looks.

"I can see that you are all confused so allow me explain properly. The final phase is to obtain a valuable item and will be completed in the pairs you were in for the fourth phase. The winner decides what the item is and is allowed to keep the item once the exam is over. There are no restrictions to what you can choose except that it has to be worth over one billion jenny."

None of the hunters were fazed by the price the item needed to be, but many were displeased by the fact that they had to work in their previous pairs, mainly the losers.

"This is stupid, I don't want to look for what he wants." Maya refers to Hanzo.

"You haven't even heard what I want yet."

"What do you want?" Gon asks with genuine curiosity.

"Sakura-chan's very first demo!"

"I love how you say that with no shame at all…"

"Wait, wouldn't you have that?" Leorio questions Sakura.

"No, I wasn't the one who even made it." Sakura looks over to Chase.

"Well, I recorded her singing one time and sent it to a random record studio. I didn't actually think it would get accepted but it did and I've never gotten it back. No idea where it is now." Chase sheepishly scratches the back of his head.

"I don't think it matters, there's no way it's worth one billion yen."

"I've got every Sakura-chan merchandise there is except for her demo since it was marketed at 700,000 jenny the last time I checked. I'm certain it's gone up to a billion jenny by now. I will finally have it!" Hanzo was so excited he didn't notice he was drooling at the thought.

Maya stood in front of Sakura and backed her away from Hanzo.

"Anyway, I'm guessing you're aiming for the scarlet eyes." Chase turns to Kurapika.

"Of course, I was looking for them before this exam anyway. What are you going to aim for?"

"Me? Uh… I don't know, I can't really think of anything."

"Me either. I don't really want anything over a billion jenny." Gon agrees.

"Then why don't you just hunt someone with a bounty over a billion jenny." Hisoka chimes in from behind Gon.

Although all of them knew he would pass, his presence still made them jump, especially Gon who he was right behind.

"H-Hisoka!"

"Hello Gon." Hisoka greets him with a creepy grin.

"Where's your partner?" Kurapika asks as he doesn't see anyone close to him.

"I killed him."

"What, but don't you need him?!"

"Since I won no. I can easily obtain an item on my own."

"I suppose that's true."

"By the way… you." Hisoka turns to Sakura and questions her. "Why were you using guns in your fight?"

"Eh?"

"You're a swordsman aren't you?"

"Oi oi oi, how the hell does this bastard know, did you guys tell him?!" Maya yelled in a whisper voice.

"Of course not! He just has some crazy weird sense thing!"

"I think it's called perception…"

"Well I prefer guns now." Sakura answers Hisoka confidently, though she was dying from the pressure inside.

"Go back to swords."

"Don't want to."

Everyone unconsciously held their breath when Sakura defied against Hisoka but Hisoka didn't do anything. People who don't cower in fear and stand up to him gave him a thrill but he decided to let it slide and ask another question.

"Also, why did you freeze up in the end?"

"I was actually wondering about that too." Kurapika joins in.

"Oh that… that was because… of your eyes." Sakura answers slowly.

Kurapika thought about what she meant by that and finally realizes what most likely happened. "Are you… afraid of my scarlet eyes?" He questions her hesitantly.

"What, no. They just remind me of some really bad things…"

"Pff, like anything that horrible ever happened that you would freeze up at a mere reminder."

"Leorio!" Gon yelled at him for his insensitivity.

"It's fine, I'm not one to dwell on the past. There's nothing left for me there anyways." Sakura says the last part with a little sad smile.

Although Kurapika wasn't exactly happy with Sakura's answers, her words did clear up his confused feelings towards her. There's no way he could love someone who couldn't even stand the sight of his scarlet eyes and moreover, someone who tries to abandon their past. He had to wonder was there really nothing left for her in her past.

There must've of been something, there must be at least one person who was still waiting for her.

* * *

A/N: I swear if there was machine to turn the images in my mind straight into words, my life would be so much easier! Haah... anyway i tried and I hope the fight scenes weren't too bad. Sorry if I got any of the nen information wrong... it's been a while since I've seen Hunter x Hunter. Also you may have seen stuff in here that seems pointless but don't worry I actually have a plan so sometimes I'll insert stuff that will make sense later :)

Anyway I hoped you guys liked it and yeah ^^

PS: Sorry if Hanzo seems too much of a crazy fan... my mind just sorta went there and now it's stuck...


	7. Chapter 6: Scarlet x Eyes x Found

A/N: Well it's 2am and I finally finished the chapter! Yay! My brain is dead... Well I feel like it's been a while since I've updated and I was on a roll so yeah... I guess it worked out. Sorry if the chapter seems disconnected I was starting and stopping a lot. I just lost my mojo at times. You know what I mean? Probably not 'cause I'm just a weird but anyway thanks for bearing with me and I hope you enjoy the chapter ^^

* * *

**Chapter 6 – Scarlet x Eyes x Found**

The next day everyone went their separate ways in the pairs of their battle matchup the other day so now it was only Kurapika and Sakura. It was still pretty awkward to be around her especially now when they were alone. He tried to busy himself with finding information on the location of the nearest scarlet eyes but it seemed that he would have to face the situation from yesterday again.

"Do you hate me?"

Kurapika was taken aback by her straightforwardness.

"I don't hate you." He replied swiftly.

"Really, because you seem like you do."

"…How so?"

"Well yesterday, you wouldn't make any eye contact with me and today I'm getting the vibe you really don't want to be near me." Sakura informs him, she had seen how he had sighed and noticed that the only words he had spoken to her was work related.

"Well yesterday was…" He trailed off as he thought about his love struck phase. "That's not the point, aren't you the one who doesn't want to be near me."

Sakura knew that Kurapika was referring to the way she reacted to his scarlet eyes.

"I thought I told you that, that was nothing against you personally." _'Well only a little.' _Sakura said the last part in her mind.

"Well when people react that way to you, you tend to think they disliked you."

Sakura stopped walking and turned around. She grabbed his face, brought it right up to her and stared into his eyes.

"See, I'm fine." Sakura stated but he wasn't, blood had immediately rushed to his face.

"You're really hot for some reason. Are you okay?" Sakura asks when the heat transferred to her hands.

Her initial thought was that he had a fever so she leaned in closer to touch their foreheads together so she could estimate his temperature.

"Y-Y-Yeah, I'm okay! I'm alright!" He panicked and pushed her away, which caused a confused look on her face.

_'__What was that?! I thought I said I could never going to fall for a person like her!' _He internally yelled.

"Um… Kurapika-"

"Hey! We should probably get a move on, our destination is still a very long way away!" Kurapika speed walked past her.

"Wait, we had a time limit?!" Sakura chases after him.

* * *

Even with Kurapika's added motivation, they still had not arrived at their destination on their first day and had to stay the night at a random town on the way.

"We would like a room to stay for the night." Kurapika told the receptionist at a local inn.

"Sure, that will be 10,000 jenny."

Kurapika handed in the money and was given the key to their room.

"Enjoy your honeymoon~" The receptionist yelled out on their way to their room.

"Our what?" Sakura stopped and turned back to the receptionist, whilst Kurapika was still preoccupied with the incident before that he didn't hear her and proceeded to walk to their room. His shock came later when he opened the door to their room.

"Why is there only one bed?"

"She thinks we're on out honeymoon."

"Our what?!"

"That's what I said!"

"I'm going to talk to the reception lady about this."

Kurapika storms out the door only to come back defeated a few moments later.

"…They're all booked out. I can't believe they thought we were a couple."

"I can't believe they thought you were a guy."

"I am a guy!"

"Yeah, but you look…" Sakura starts before Kurapika gives her a death glare "Never mind."

"Haah, what are we going to do now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Were you not here a few moments ago?" Kurapika gestures to the one bed in the room.

"Yeah?"

"We can't sleep in one bed together!"

"Why not? People do it all the time."

"But we're not… a couple."

"So?"

"So it's weird for us to sleep in the same bed together!"

"Kurapika, stop being such an old-fashioned fart."

"Old fashioned fart?!"

"Look the only problem that I can sort of see with us sleeping in the same would be if we had actual feelings for each other, which we don't."

"R-Right! We definitely don't, I definitely don't have feelings for you, none whatsoever." Kurapika blurted out in a flustered state, he was not expecting Sakura to bring that topic up.

"Um…ok, dramatic much." Sakura brushed his frazzled response off and walks towards the door. "I'm going to get some snacks."

_'__Thank god she's dense!' _Kurapika thought with relief but in turn, Sakura's under reaction caused him to focus on his reaction. He thought he was done with the whole confusing love feelings thing that he would never be with a person like her. Why did his hormonal instincts have to act up now, just because she was a little strong and a little cute- _'Whoa, stop right there!' _Since when did he care about someone's looks, especially hers, with her stupid pink hair and her stupid smile and her stupid eyes, which transform into silver when the light was reflected off…

"Hey, did you want anything?" Sakura peeked in through the door.

Kurapika jumped as the very person he was thinking of snapped him out of his thoughts.

"I'm fine!"

"Okay…" Sakura backed out through the door. _'He's getting weirder and weirder every time I see him.'_

After Sakura left the room and Kurapika heard her footsteps fading down the hall, he fell back on the bed and sighed.

* * *

"Time for bed!" Sakura yelled happily and went to jump in the bed.

"Whoa, hold a second!"

"What?" Sakura pouted.

"Do you even have to ask? I'm not letting you in the bed until you dry your hair properly."

"Can't you see the air drying it? How much more 'proper' can you get?" Sakura tells him whilst twirling around the room.

"First of all, that doesn't make sense and secondly come here and dry your hair properly with a _towel._" He offers her a clean towel.

"Don't wanna." Sakura stuck her tongue out and pulled her eye at him.

He just sighed and walked over to Sakura to drape the towel over her head. When she didn't make a move to dry her hair with it, he let out another sigh and proceeded to dry her hair for her.

"Ugh, what are you my mother?" Sakura expressed her clear dislike of the action on her head.

"Well, I don't want to sleep with someone who wets the bed."

"..."

"You know what I meant!" He blushed as he realised just how odd his previous sentence sounded out loud. "You shouldn't make this a habit, you'll catch a cold."

"Too late, this is actually the first time drying my hair with a towel."

"Didn't your anyone ever tell you to do this?"

"Uh… well, I've kind of been living alone most of my life so… no."

"Oh, sorry I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine, it's not like I've been so sensitive about your situation."

There was an awkward silence as the both of them sensed that they have crossed the line.

"Um… I think my hair is dry now."

"Oh, right!" He quickly removed the towel off her head. "Let's get to sleep!"

"But it's not even that late yet."

"Yeah well, we have to get up early in the morning, so sleep."

"Wait, we do?"

"Yes, we still have quite a bit to go before we reach the mansion." Kurapika attempts to give a valid reason and proceeds to go under the covers.

"But I thought we were planning to attack in the middle of the night." Sakura points out, only to be ignored.

"Fine, you go off to dreamland by yourself, I still want to stay up a bit later." Sakura announces before turning off the light.

Seeing as Kurapika was sleeping on his side, Sakura decided to sit near the window so that his back was facing her. She stared at his sleeping form for a while before turning her head to the window. The moonlight shines gently on her face as she gazes out the window aimlessly. She moves the strands of hair that were blocking part of view and found her hands wandering through her hair. She let out a sigh.

_'__I wonder how long it's been since someone has cared enough to dry my hair for me.' _She thought with a sad smile.

But she knew it wasn't anyone's fault, she didn't deserve their concern nor did she want it so she supposed that this whole matter was mute.

Unbeknownst to her, Kurapika had looked over his shoulder and witnessed her in her disheartened state. He could tell that she had intended to keep this moment to herself so he decided not to say anything.

* * *

When Kurapika awoke, the first sight he saw was Sakura's sleeping face. He blushed and went to back away, but the thought of waking her up halted his movements. He tried his best to stay still.

_'__She really is cute.' _He couldn't help but think as he stared at her sleeping form.

However upon closer inspection, he noticed the redness under her eyes. It was very light and from a distance he was sure no one would've noticed, but since he was so close to her face, the redness really stood out to him.

_'__Has she been crying?'_

His hand unconsciously reached out to her but before he made contact, eyes snapped open.

"What are you doing?"

Realising that his hands were only inches away from Sakura's face, he immediately retracted them, although he retracted them so fast that he lost his balance and went tumbling back off the bed, making the whole situation even more embarrassing.

At first Sakura just sat there staring at his crumpled form on the ground, then after a few seconds later she burst out laughing.

"Ahahaha! You're such a weird person!" Sakura says while hugging her stomach and wiping some of the tears escaping from her eyes.

Kurapika could only sit there, blinking with his face flushed with red.

"S-Shut up, you surprised me!" He yelled in response, but at least she seems happy now, maybe those red marks were from tears of joy… or maybe he was just over-thinking all this.

"Anyway hurry up and get ready." He tells her as he sees that she was still in her pyjamas and she clearly had bedhead. He didn't know a lot about the behaviour of girls but after being Neon's bodyguard he knew how annoying it was to wait for them to get ready.

Sakura let out a tired yawn and rubbed the tears from the yawn off her eyes before pulling the covers off herself and getting out of bed.

At first she was just standing there and trying to stay awake until her pyjamas shattered into a bunch of cherry blossom petals. Kurapika went to cover his eyes but then he saw that she still had a white skater dress on and let out a sigh of relief. Though as soon as the cherry blossom shattered, they gathered up and swirled back around her again. In a matter of seconds, the petals had incased her before bursting out and revealing a completely dressed Sakura, her hair was nice and neat as well.

"All done." Sakura announces and looks and Kurapika for confirmation. "What?"

"You make your own clothes?" Kurapika asks questionably.

"Don't worry these are totally legit." Sakura pulls on the hem of her shirt to prove her point. "Besides, this way I can use it as an armour as well, go ahead and punch me in the gut."

"I'm good…"

* * *

After walking for about an hour from the inn they had reached their destination, the mansion harbouring the scarlet eyes.

"What do we do now?" Sakura asks, a little annoyed. They were here way too early, just like she told Kurapika.

"We wait."

"The sun hasn't even gone down yet." Sakura informs him.

"Well, that means we have plenty of time to scout the area." Kurapika tells her, trying to make this situation look like it's a good thing and divert the attention away the reason for them being way to early.

"That's stupid." Sakura comments but since Kurapika was technically the leader, she still followed him when he 'scouted' the area.

They actually did end up doing a pretty good job but a lot of the precautions were totally unnecessary in Sakura's opinion.

_'__When did he become such a caution freak?'_

When midnight, the time they both agreed on to enter the mansion finally came, Sakura immediately split from Kurapika and headed for one of the windows.

"Hey-" Kurapika started to yell after her but quickly stopped himself before he gave them away to the guards who had arrived after them. He had no choice but to follow Sakura's lead and enter the building through the window she had picked open. However as soon as they were inside, he made sure to take the leadership role back.

"Control complex much." He heard Sakura mutter under her breath but decided to ignore it and continue on with the mission.

Kurapika continued down the hallway, making sure to avoid any security cameras or guards posted along the way. Sakura followed behind him and avoided them as well. He didn't look back to check if she did but no alarms were going off so it was safe to assume she did.

They weren't sure exactly where the scarlet eyes were stored so they had to check all the rooms they came across. He decided to check all the rooms on the right whilst Sakura check the rooms on the left.

They cleared the first floor with no sign of the eyes. The mansion had a total five floors including the attic and basement so Kurapika decided he would head up to the next floor whilst Sakura took the basement. He assigned it this way since Sakura was quicker than he was and would be able to catch up to him faster if she found nothing.

_'__This is going to take longer than I thought.' _Kurapika thought as he headed up the staircase to the second floor.

As soon as he stepped foot on the second floor, an alarm went off. Caught off guard by the sudden alarm, Kurapika immediately looks back to see if something had happened to Sakura and discuss their next course of action. Unfortunately Sakura had already gone down to the basement and this action caused Kurapika to miss the guard who instantly appeared in front of him when the alarm went off. By the time he senses the presence in front of him, he had been kicked right in the stomach, which sent him tumbling back down the stairs. "Gah!"

He wasn't given any time to regroup as he sees the guard lift up his hand, which triggered his ability to create what seemed like balls of fire behind him. With a flick of the wrist, the fireballs were hurled towards Kurapika who was still in the midst of tumbling down the stairs.

Kurapika clicked his tongue in annoyance, _'Che. A nen user.'_

Acting quickly, he launched his chains, wraps them a nearby pillar and pulls on it to avoid the fireballs coming his way. Luckily he made it in time and the fireballs scorched the floor at the bottom of the stairs. He lands next to the pillar and moves around it so that his back face up against the pillar, hiding him from the guard's sight.

"Do you really think you can hide from me?" The guard sneers as he lifts his hand up again.

Kurapika expected the fireballs to appear from behind the guard like last time, but he soon found out that he was completely wrong. Instead of appearing behind the guard, the fireballs appeared right in front of him. He quickly dives to the ground to avoid the fireballs and did one complete tuck and roll to get him back on his feet. He was now out in plain view.

"Hmph. Impressive, but let's see you dodge these."

The guard lifts both his hands up and fireballs appeared all around Kurapika before they were hurled in his direction. He knew he wouldn't be able to dodge fully all of them completely so he decided to let some of them in but made sure that nothing vital would be hit.

"Agh!" He cried out in pain as the fireballs burnt through his clothes seared his skin.

Luckily he was able to get out without getting severely injured and he was still able to move around quite freely, if he ignored the pain. Plus during the last attack he was able to discover how the guard's nen ability really worked and what conditions need to be met. He found that the fireballs took about three seconds to fully form and only appears at the general direction in which the guard was pointing at.

_'__I just have to reach him and restrict his arm movements.' _Kurapika thought. _'But from this distance, the only way I could get to him quick enough would be to use my scarlet eyes and activate emperor time.' _He really didn't want to use his scarlet eyes and risk its side effects but it seems like he had no other choice. The longer he let this fight drag on, the more he would be at a disadvantage.

After making up his mind, he waited for the guard to use his ability again and the second Kurapika saw flecks of flames around him, he activated his scarlet eyes causing his speed to increase immensely when he powered himself up with nen.

The guard was caught off guard and Kurapika was able to seal his hands behind him, however, that wasn't enough to stop the guard.

"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me." The guard states coolly, which only clearly registered in Kurapika's mind when he felt the heat above him.

He made the action to move out from under the fireballs but the guard wasn't about to let and gripped his chains to keep Kurapika from dodging. The fireballs rained down upon them and both were caught in the attack.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sakura had heard the alarm go off but decided to ignore it and continue down the stairs to the basement.

"Geez, how much longer will it be until I reach the bottom?"

Her question is soon answered as she hits an invisible wall.

"Ite." She voices out her pain as she rubs the spot on her forehead that smacked the invisible wall. "What was that?"

Sakura moves her hand out of her line of vision only to find out there was nothing in front of her. Well, she did see the stairs continuing down to who knows where, but she knew she definitely hit something solid.

_'__This doesn't make sense.'_

She slowly reaches out in front of her and finds that there was indeed something solid in front of her.

_'__Maybe if I…'_

Sakura gathers her nen up to her eyes in hopes that she could see whatever it was in front of her using gyou.

_'__Bingo.'_

Through gyou, the hidden door to the basement was revealed. Sakura turns the door handle and tries to push the door open, but it doesn't budge. She tries pulling, thinking it was one of those awkward moments when you open the door the wrong way, but it still wouldn't budge. She focused her nen onto her arms and tried again, but once again, it didn't shift in the slightest.

_'__Why… won't… you… op…' _She thought as she pushed with all her might, only to discover that there was a keypad next to the door _'en…'_

She had a huge urge to face-palm, but that wouldn't turn out well with her strengthened arms. Instead she let out a sigh and contemplated on how to open the door taking into account the newfound information.

In the end she decided to just open the door with force, since figuring out a password took too much effort in her opinion and she her time was limited in this situation.

She conjures up a katana out of her nen and cut the door apart. At first it looked like she just did one clean slice through the middle of the door, but later as the two halves shifts, all her other slices because visible as the two sides are then split into many pieces, which crashed to the ground almost simultaneously.

*Crash!*

_'__Maybe I shouldn't have done that…' _She thought as she turns around nervously to see if anyone had come running from the loud crashing sounds.

She waited for a while for people to show up and attack her, but no one showed up. She couldn't feel anyone coming her way either, then a realisation dawned on her.

_'__They could come from inside the basement!' _

She quickly spun around and put up her guard, but no one was coming to get her from inside the basement either nor could she feel any presences.

_'__There is a chance they're concealing their presences…' _With that thought in mind, Sakura lifts her katana up and considers whether to change the katana into guns or just keep it as is.

Personally she preferred guns as the katana brings back a lot of unwanted feelings, but changing weapons now would be dangerous. Someone could be lurking in the basement, waiting for a chance to ambush her for all she knew. Guns don't work that well in close combat anyway.

_'__Haah, I guess I'll keep the katana.' _She sighed and conjures up a belt and a matching sheath out of her nen. She made the belt hold the sheath on her back horizontally since she didn't like how swords tend to dangle on your side. She whipped the katana out in front of her to get any stray residue of the door off before sliding it in the sheath behind her.

She proceeded to make her way into the dark basement. She didn't bother finding the light switch, as the light from the open doorway was enough for her to see. She was used to walking around in the night anyway, so the darkness didn't bother her much.

After exploring the room for a good while, Sakura found that the room wasn't very big at all. It was more like a massive vault than a basement under a mansion; either that or these people were very cheap when it came to the rooms under the ground. So instead of walking around to search, she decided to go back to the light of the open door and do a quick scan of the room, to see if there were any abnormalities that could be related to the scarlet eyes.

After discovering how small the room was, she deemed that it was safe to assume no one was inside the room besides her. She would still have to watch the door incase someone from the outside finally realised she was in here, but that wasn't really going to affect what she was about to do. She decided that it was safe to create a torch and shine it through the room, so she did exactly that. She conjured up her petals and combined them together to create a bright, working torch. She shines the torch throughout the room and finds that it was full of antics.

_'__Maybe the scarlet eyes is actually here!' _Sakura thought excitedly, after all scarlet eyes were kind of an antic, right? Well either way, she was really fired up, as there was a very good chance they were in here and she could find them, give them to Kurapika and never have to be near them ever again. At least not that pair in particular.

She carefully scanned the room from one side to the other, making sure not to miss any details. When she reaches the near the middle of the room, it turns out that her efforts were not in vain. At the very back she was sure there was a faint reddish glow. Her eyes may just be playing tricks on her but she wasn't afraid to play along.

She quickly made her way through the hoard of antics to the area where she swore, was glowing red. She clears the area around the red glow and finds that it was coming from under this object covered in a black cloth.

_'__Please be it. Please be it.' _Sakura chants in her mind, as she went to uncover the unknown object.

Once the cloth was off, much to her joy, a pair of red glowing eyes in some kind of container was revealed underneath.

_'__Yes! I've never been more glad to see these in my life!'_

She picks up the eyes with triumph in her own eyes and places it in the bag she had conjured up before they even entered the mansion. Who said she wasn't an organised type of person.

She happily turns around and runs up the stairs, she couldn't wait to show these to Kurapika and shove it in his face. Well not literally, that would be weird. She continues to carry her happy mood to the first floor, until she sees Kurapika who was still smoking from the fire.

"Kurapika!" Sakura yells out, her mood plummets down immediately.

She runs up to him and shoves the random person next to Kurapika away. She flips Kurapika onto his back and presses her ear on top of his chest. It took a while but she finally heard a heartbeat.

_'__Thank God he's alive!'_

However the relief that Kurapika was alive only lasted a second as she saw the burn marks all over him.

_'__Why wasn't I born an enhancer?!' _Sakura thought with dismay, if she was, she would be able to heal him. She did know the process to heal but she knew that her nen wasn't strong enough in the field to make any real difference.

No, actually there was one way that she could make her healing ability strong enough to heal Kurapika. It was the one thing she never wanted to use as long as she lived.

Her scarlet eyes.

She knew how to activate them and that it would give her an enormous amount of power in every field of nen, but she really didn't want to use them. This wasn't because of the side effects she knew the action would ensure; it was more of a personal issue. But what choice did she have, she couldn't just let Kurapika suffer and possibly die. That's right, she couldn't let emotions determine a choice of life and death of a friend.

With that resolution in mind, Sakura closes her eyes and when she opened them back up again they were glowing scarlet. She gathers her nen to her hands and lays them on top of Kurapika.

_'__I hope this works.' _Sakura prays as she injects Kurapika with a huge amount of her nen that she had converted to heal things.

The reaction her nen had on Kurapika truly shocked her. She watched as her nen flowed from the point in the body she had originally place it is and spread out all throughout the body, healing Kurapika at an amazing speed. She watched as the burn marks on his skin slowly faded away.

"Whoa." Was the only thing that escaped her mouth.

Sakura would have liked to just stay there and watch the healing process to completion, but then she starts to detect people heading their way.

"We better get out of here." Sakura tells to Kurapika, but receives no response, as he was still unconscious.

Sakura lets out a sigh and throws Kurapika over her shoulder before making her daring escape and by that she means running out the front door. Hey, it was right in front of her, she wasn't bothered to run all the way back to the window they entered in and trying to get both Kurapika and her through a hole meant for one person. She wasn't that industrious when it came to being a thief. She powers herself up with her nen and she was out of there faster than you could say 'fudge'.

She decided to stop just outside the nearest town to the mansion, which was quite far away, like maybe an hour distance if you walk.

"Sakura?" A voice calls out from the entrance of the city.

Sakura turns around to see Chase and Killua, who were staring at her with wide eyes.

_'__What are they staring at… Crap.'_

Sakura only realises now that she had forgotten to switch off her scarlet eyes.

* * *

A/N: Ok so I tried moving the story along to the main idea/purpose (i don't know) of the story because I have noticed that it's getting kinda confusing but don't worry I have a plan and it will make sense... I think. The point is it makes sense in my brain so I hope it makes sense in words to you guys but maybe it won't. I'm okay with that. I'm just happy you gave me a chance and I do appreciate all the reviews... sorry if I annoyed some people... but you know I don't regret what I wrote... okay that was lie... there is some things I would change but in the end I wrote it and it wouldn't feel right if I did. I might fix the grammar and stuff later but right now I'm just focusing on finishing. And at least you read my story then reviewed (I hope) and that alone makes my really happy. If you like and fav too then that's even more awesome ^^

P.S. I noticed when on word that it's spelt 'realize' but on here it's spelt to 'realise'. I'm going to be stuck wondering about it tomorrow... well today since it's 2am. Well anyway I just noticed this and I thought I would share it with you guys :P

P.P.S If you see an update like a day or two later it's probably because I got annoyed at the first two author notes being different and changed it...


	8. Chapter 7: Secret x Is x Out

A/N: Ugh... don't you just hate it when you fall back into bad habits... I don't know why but ever since I came back from my vacation with no internet I couldn't find the motivation to write at home, I could only make myself write at school. Well good thing I wrote most of this before my vacation otherwise I don't know when I would've finished. Well anyway I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and my inner struggles would've been worth it ^^

* * *

**Chapter 7: Secret x Is x Out**

"Haha… hey guys. What are you doing here?" Sakura asks nervously while she quickly blinks the red away.

"You know just collecting our item for the hunter exam, and seeing our friend with glowing _red_ eyes!" Chase yells out in response, making sure to put the emphasis of 'red'.

"Are you sure my eyes were red? It's pretty late and people who have been deprived of sleep have been known to have hallucinations-"

"Why don't you just admit you're a kurata?" Killua cuts in, tired of Sakura's lame attempt to push them away from the truth.

"Kurata? I thought that clan had been wiped out... ooohhhh." Chase starts only to recall the bit about the kurata having red eyes. "Wait, doesn't he have red eyes too." Chase points to the unconscious Kurapika, who Sakura had set on the ground. "So doesn't that mean you two know each other?"

"Uh… you could say that…" Sakura responds hesitantly.

"Why didn't you tell him?" Killua asks bluntly.

"Um… well… just so we're clear, he didn't say anything either!" Sakura shoves the blame on Kurapika, as she had no other explanation. Well she does have a reason, a very damn good reason in fact, but she didn't really want to reveal it right now, especially to Killua, who she just met.

"That still doesn't change the fact that you didn't say anything to him." Killua counters.

"Hey, if someone forgets about you, it's only natural that-" A sharp pain in her head cuts Sakura short "Ah!" She clutches her head at her temples.

"Sakura, what's wrong?!" Chase asks and he quickly races to her side.

"My head feels like it's being repeatedly stabbed." Sakura was able to reply before she was hit with a sharper pain, which had her falling to her knees. "Ahh!"

"Sakura! Crap she's starting to burn up!"

"Don't shout so much, people are trying to sleep."

"How can you say that right now?! Sakura looks like she's dying!" Chase yells at Killua for his insensitivity.

"Relax. It's probably just the side effect." Killua informs him.

"Side effect? From what?" Chase questions Killua.

"From using her eyes, Kurapika went through the same thing. They experience terrible pains and become feverish if they use it for too long but based on Kurapika's experience last time, she'll just have to deal with it until the side effects subside on their own." Killua explains.

"So her life's not in danger?"

"No." Killua answers, although he's no a hundred percent sure, if it'll stop the yelling than he supposed it was more than okay to tell Chase that. She didn't seem that weak enough to die from that anyway.

Chase let out a sigh of relief before he felt someone tugging at his shirt.

"P-Promise me y-you won't… tell Ku-Kurapika." Sakura pleads with Chase with her remaining strength.

"What? I have to-" Chase starts, only to receive rough tug on his shirt from Sakura, showing her disapproval.

Sakura proceeds to look up at Chase with desperate eyes; she really didn't want Kurapika to find out at this time, especially not from someone else.

"Alright, if it'll make you feel better, I won't tell him." Chase gives in.

Sakura turns to Killua, who in turn just gave her the 'does it look like I care' look. Relief floods through her and she collapses into Chase's arms.

"What do we do now?" Killua asks.

"I'll check into an inn in this town and stay here with Sakura until she recovers. You go back to the hunter exam site with Kurapika and turn in our item." Chase replies.

"Okay. Do I turn in their item too?"

"Oh, they've already gotten their item as well?"

"Well, I'm guessing that's what's in that bag." Killua refers to the bag Sakura was carrying that was emitting a light glow.

Chase opens the bag and takes out the scarlet eyes hidden inside.

"Whoa, this is creepy." Chase comments as he takes in the scarlet eyes floating in the container. "But, how is this worth so much money?"

"Who knows, people have some weird kinks." Killua says before he takes the eyes out of Chase's hands "I'll be going then." He announces and was gone in a flash.

"Okay then, time to find an inn." Chase mumbles to himself.

* * *

The next morning, Sakura opens her eyes to find a cloth covering them, keeping her from seeing anything but white. She moves to remove the cloth from her eyes but as soon she moves, pain racked her entire body. She could feel the sweat run down the side of her face.

"Don't move." Chase tells her and pushes her hand back down.

"Where… am I?" Sakura asks between ragged breaths.

"An inn in the town we were at last night." Chase answers.

"Is… Kurapika… here?" Sakura questions, worry in her voice.

"Don't worry, since he wasn't injured, Killua took him back to the exam site along with your item." Chase reassures her.

Hearing Chase's response, Sakura lets out a silent sigh of relief, although her time of relief was cut short as another burst of pain struck her whole body. She didn't cry out in pain, but Chase could see how much pain she was in from her twisted facial expressions and body movements.

"You shouldn't talk anymore." Chase tells her and pulls the blankets she had kicked off back over her.

Chase then proceeds to remove the cloth off Sakura's eyes, soaks it in the bucket of water next to the bed, wring the water back out before placing it over her eyes again.

During the process, he couldn't help but stare at Sakura's eyes, which had changed back to scarlet during the night. Sakura of course notices and decides to ask what she knew Chase wanted to know.

"Want… to know why… I didn't… tell Kurapika?"

"Eh? Of course not, it's none of my business." Chase quickly denied.

"It's fine… you already know… I'm a kurata… anyway."

"You need to rest." Chase tells Sakura after her how out of breath she was. In all honesty, he did really want to know, but now wasn't the time.

However, Sakura ignores Chase and starts to give her explanation anyway. She had already mustered up the courage to tell somebody and she wasn't going to let this chance pass her by. She just wanted to hurry up and get this off her chest already.

_~ Flashback ~_

_In a small town in Japan…_

_"__*Okaa-san!" The three-year-old Sakura shouts, as she runs to her mum._

_"__Mikan!" Her mother responds and lifts her up in the air. _

_\- Flashback pause -_

"Wait, who's Mikan?" Chase asks, thrown off by the new name.

"Um… Me?" Sakura replies, not exactly sure what the problem was.

"Oh, you changed your name? That's dedication."

"Huh?"

"Your name's Sakura now, right?"

"Yeah… Sakura's my… last name…"

"Oh… how come this is the first I've heard of this?" Chase asks only to receive a weak shrug as a response.

_\- Flashback restart -_

_"__How was your day sweetie?" Her mother enquires._

_"__Super! **Otou-san bought me this cake!" Sakura replies and shows her mother the cake._

_"__Honestly dear, I thought I told you to stop buying her sweets." Her mother looks over to her father._

_"__Ehh, but how can you say no to this cute little face." Her father defends himself and squishes her face for emphasis._

_Her mother let out a sigh and started walking back inside the house. Her father follows her in while he tries to convince her that spoiling their daughter wasn't a bad thing. She watches her parents argue amongst themselves about her and couldn't help a little giggle from escaping. She then goes to follow them in the house, but as she was walking, someone ran right into her and knocks the cake right out of her hands._

_"__Oh I'm so sor-" The person that ran into starts to apologies until he catches a glimpse of her face. "Monster!"_

_The yell caught the attention of everyone including her parents, who quickly rushed back outside. There they saw the cake smashed on the ground and their daughter glaring at a man with her scarlet eyes._

_"__Oh no." Her mother starts to panic, while her father quickly runs over to her and shields her from the upcoming onslaught._

_"__She must be possessed!"_

_"__Get her out of here!"_

_The yells quickly escalated to things being thrown at her._

_"__Otou-san I'm scared." She says and buries herself deeper into her father's embrace._

_"__It's okay sweetie, Otou-san will protect you."_

_Her father quickly guides her back into the house with her mother._

_"__Why! Why does she have those?!" Her mother yells hysterically._

_"__Calm down dear, we knew this was a possibility from the start." Her father tries to calm her mother down. _

_"__What do we do now?"_

_"__Well for now, let's go back to the village." _

_"__Are you insane?!"_

_"__Only until she learns how to control her eyes."_

_"__They'll never accept us!"_

_"__Come on, they're your family, of course they'll accept us… at the very least they'll accept you and Mikan."_

_"__But what about you?"_

_"__Don't worry about me."_

_"__Dear!"_

_"__What other choice do we have?!" Her father yells back, the riot outside finally getting to him._

_In the end they decided going back to the village was their best course of action, so they packed their things and headed out of the town. It was difficult making it through the angry mob at first, but when the mob saw the direction they were heading, they let them through, although they were still yelling angrily at them as they left._

_By the time they reached the village, it was already nighttime so maneuvering through the forest was very troublesome. Eventually, the people from the village came out from hearing the noise._

_"__Who's there?!" One of the villagers yelled out, swords in his hands._

_"__Don't worry it's just me!" Her mother yelled back._

_"…__Kaori?" One of the villagers recognizes her mother and happily walks closer, until he sees her father. "Who's that?" He questions her mother, but when his eyes land on her, his question was answered and he did not like the answer. "Kaori don't tell me you…" He trails off and when her mother stays silent, he yells "Don't you know marrying an outsider is forbidden!"_

_"__You don't understand!" Her mother tries to defend herself._

_"__It's you who doesn't understand."_

_"__Chief!" They all shouted and opened a path to let him through._

_"__You have let an outsider in and that brings danger to everyone in the village." The chief declares and doesn't even give her mother a chance to respond._

_"__Ah!" Her mother cries out in pain and she is slashed with swords._

_"__Gah!" Her father was immediately slashed as well._

_"__Okaa-san! Otou-san!" She yells as she sees her parents being cut down, tears streaming down her face from her glowing her eyes._

_The villagers turn to her and one of them goes to kill her, but before he does, the chief stops him._

_"__Wait, don't kill her." The chief orders, when he sees her scarlet eyes. _

_She watches the chief then bends down to her level and give her a seemingly kind smile, before everything went black. _

_When she wakes up, she found that it was morning and that she was in a bed of a room she had never seen before._

_~ Flashback end ~_

"…" Chase stays silent, as he doesn't know what to say or if he should say anything right now.

After a while though, a realization hit him.

"Wait, doesn't that mean you would've been in the village during the massacre?"

"No… I already… left before that."

"Oh… but wait, doesn't that mean Kurapika would know that there was a chance you're still alive. From what I saw, he was pretty sure that everyone from his village was dead."

"I left… after him."

"…I still don't get why you don't just tell him."

"It's nothing personal… I just don't… want to have… anything more… to do with the… kurata clan."

"That's a little selfish of you isn't it?"

"I know, but it's… better this way. He'd just… be disappointed."

* * *

When morning came around, Killua had already completed his task of handing in the items and had dropped Kurapika off at an infirmary. Gon and Leorio were still out collecting their item, so Killua was basically stuck with Kurapika. Although he supposed it wasn't so bad, there were some things about the situation surrounding Kurapika that interested him.

"Mm…" Kurapika begins shifting in the bed.

"You finally awake?"

Killua's question brought Kurapika back to reality and he shot up immediately.

"…Where am I?" Kurapika asks when he sees that he is no longer in the mansion.

"The infirmary at the exam site." Killua responds casually.

"Where's Sakura?" Kurapika asks after he had looked around the room and found no sign of her.

"With her friend in another town." Killua gave a vague response since he didn't know exactly where she was and he didn't care enough to think too deeply about her whereabouts.

"Oh, so she's fine?" Kurapika enquires and takes Killua silence and a 'yes.' He relaxes at this, but he was disappointed that he wasn't able to acquire the scarlet eyes. He couldn't believe that he let that nen user get the better of him. Well he supposed he could go back and get the scarlet eyes and a rematch, wait, was that guy still alive and more importantly how was he uninjured.

"Does Sakura remind you of anyone?" Killua suddenly spoke up, snapping Kurapika out of his thoughts.

"Huh? I don't think so." Kurapika replies without much thought

"You sure you've never met her before?" Killua pushes.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure." Kurapika replies again, confused at where Killua was going with this.

"Think back. Doesn't she seem familiar… like a childhood friend perhaps?" Killua tries to jog Kurapika's memory by slipping in more information.

"Killua, you know I spent my entire childhood in the village." Kurapika responds a little annoyed that Killua brought up his past.

"Yeah so?"

"Killua!" Kurapika snaps, as he was getting angry that Killua wouldn't get the hint and drop the subject. He knows that everyone from the village was… dead… what was the point of this conversation?

"Just think back." Killua says coolly.

At first Kurapika just continued to glare at Killua but seeing that Killua was not backing down, he sighed at thought back. He recalls everyone in the village, from his close friends right down to the people he only sees once in a while. He applies Sakura's appearance and personality to everyone he remembers and to his surprise he finds a close match.

"I think I found someone." Kurapika announces.

"Really?" Killua fakes surprise.

"Yeah… I remember this girl who I would sometimes hang out with. She had pink hair, about the same shade as Sakura, she was bubbly, clumsy and I remember she loved sweets…" Kurapika trails off.

"Wow, sounds like they could be twins!" Killua says in an over exaggerating tone, although the truth was much bigger.

"That's impossible, Sakura's not a kurata… Mikan is." Kurapika states.

_"__She must've changed her name. Guess she means business.'_ Killua concluded after hearing Kurapika's defense.

"Well maybe you should think this over one more time." Killua advises Kurapika and left it at that. He was curious but not that dedicated to the situation concerning Kurapika.

"Um ok…" Kurapika responds as he watched Killua leave the room.

_'__What does he mean by that?' _Kurapika couldn't help but ponder on Killua's last words. Why did he have to think about her again, it was already painful to think about her once. After all, she was his first love.

* * *

By the end of the week, the rest of the hunters had returned to the exam site from their mission. This confused Kurapika a little at first but then Killua explained that while he was preoccupied, the chairman sent out a notice regarding the phase rules. Seemed like he _forgot _to tell them that there was a one week time limit for the phase. Thanks to his _mistake_ almost half of the participants failed as the notice was sent near the middle of the phase and the ones who went for items that required time was forced to change their items. Long story short, those people rushed and either got caught and ran out of time.

He didn't really care about passing so this revelation had no effect on him, he was more concerned about other things. Like what ever happened to his partner, Sakura. From what he heard from Killua that she went to an inn with a friend at the town closest to the mansion, but that was a more than a few days ago. He hadn't seen or heard from her since.

Kurapika was currently leaning against a wall in the corner of the room where they were supposed to meet up. He saw Hisoka in another corner and made sure to avoid any kind of contact with the psychopath who seems to be rather pleased with something at the moment.

_'__Let's just pretend he's not there.' _Kurapika told himself.

Soon he was joined with his friends Killua, Gon and Leorio. Looks like Gon and Leorio had succeeded in their mission taking into consideration the smug look on Leorio's face and the big grin on Gon's face.

Hanzo and Maya joined them about an hour later. He couldn't tell if they passed or not since Maya had a huge smile on her face whilst Hanzo looked like he just had the life sucked out of him.

A few more hours passed before Chase showed up and received a kick to the face from Maya.

_'__Didn't Sakura say they were going out?'_ Kurapika sweat dropped as he watched Maya continue to beat the crap out of Chase.

Another hour passed after Chase's arrival but there was still no sign of Sakura. He had asked Chase about it but he said that she said she had something she needed to do so they ended up going their separate ways about a day ago.

_'__I hope she's okay.' _Kurapika thought and looked at the clock. The cutoff for the phase was midnight and it was currently 11:47. She only had about 10 minutes to get here before she was disqualified.

"Why did you leave her alone?! You know she can't be trusted to be on her own!" Maya grabs Chase's color and yells at Chase as she had also noticed the time.

"She said it was personal." Chase responds unfazed as if he's been through this abuse a million times.

Maya just clicked her tongue and harshly let go of Chase's color.

"Wow, you're amazing." Leorio tells Chase, referring to the way he puts up with Maya.

"Well that's the power of lo-" Chase starts but was stopped midsentence when a scythe came at him from above. Luckily he was able to dodge the scythe before it split him in two, but Kurapika doubted Maya meant any actual harm. He was pretty sure…

Turning back to the clock, it was now 11:53 and Sakura still hasn't arrived.

_'__Maybe she's not coming back…" _Kurapika thought when he realizes that there was no reason for her to come back here. Killua had already turned in their items to be checked so she was free to go.

At the one minute marks, the chairman and beans made their appearance and all the hunters that had gotten their item had arrived.

"I guess she's not coming." Killua remarks. _'Looks like I won't see how it'll go.' _Killua thought disappointedly, although he can understand why she wouldn't want to come back to where Kurapika was when she didn't have to.

"I don't blame her. I can't wait to get away from you people." Maya adds.

"Maya." Chase says in a scolding tone to which Maya just rolls her eyes.

"I thought it was super fun to meet you guys." Gon says happily.

"Me too." Kurapika agrees with a smile.

"Yeah, I'm sure Sakura feels the same way too." Chase adds, making sure to look at Kurapika while he talks. He was really hoping that Kurapika would pick up the vibes he was sending his way.

_'__Why is he looking at me like that?' _Kurapika thought as he contemplates Chase's expression, it looked like he wanted to say something.

***Gong!***

The clock sounded when the arrows finally reached midnight.

"It's finally over!" Leorio shouts, unwittingly attracting all the attention of the other hunters around who had stopped to listen to the Chairman speak. "Oops."

"Ho ho ho don't count your eggs before they're hatched boy." The chairman responds to Leorio's comment. "The exam isn't over yet."

"Huh?" Leorio utters in confusion.

Everyone else in the room was confused as well. The chairman clearly said that this was the final phase, hat does he mean by 'the exam isn't over'?

"Yes I did say this was the final phase before but there's been a change of plans." The chairman reveals, adding curiosity to everyone's confusion. "Too many of you have passed so we need to lower the numbers a little. So the real final phase is to hunt down your partner from the previous two phases. The winners of the fourth phase must find the losers and bring them back here within three days. If you bring your partner back within the time frame, you pass. If you don't, your partner will pass. Oh, one more thing, killing is prohibited in this phase. Not just your partner, if you kill any other hunter you will be disqualified." Netero explains, making sure to look at Hisoka when he said the last part. Hisoka just gives him one of his smiles before Netero turns back to the rest.

"In what world is half a little?!" Maya yells in frustration. She already had to deal with the stupid bald ninja who won't stop talking and now she finds out that she didn't even pass. _'This is ridiculous.'_

"Relax." Chase tries to calm Maya down. "Besides this means that if you can avoid getting caught by him, you'll pass and he'll fail." Chase adds, as he knew what Maya was really upset about.

"That's the smartest thing you've said to me since we got here!" Maya compliments Chase, well it was more of an insult but Chase didn't seem to take it that way.

"Thanks." Chase responds with a genuine smile.

"I don't understand love." Killua comments after witnessing the interactions between Chase and Maya.

"Trust me you never will." Leorio assures him and places his hand sadly on Killua's shoulder.

"Well it makes sense you don't." Killua shrugs his Leorio's hand off his shoulder.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Exactly what it means old man."

"Will you stop calling me that!"

"I will when you stop being an old man."

"I'm not old!"

"Maa maa." Gon tries to create peace between the two.

_'__Wow, they really haven't changed since the last exam. Guess I'm the only one…' _Kurapika thought a little sadly. He remembered when he first met them and was able to have fun like they do. That was a good time in his life but he can't turn back the clock now. He has to live with the things that happened in the past and the choices he's made, forever.

_'__Ugh!' _Kurapika shook his head vigorously. _'Why do I have to overthink everything?!' _Kurapika thought with annoyance. If only he was able to live in the moment like his friends and forget his past, his life would be so much better. All his past has given him is a reason for revenge and the deaths of his entire family. He really doesn't understand why he's putting himself through this pain, okay well he does, it's to avenge his dead clan and let them rest in peace, but what was he going to do after. After he's defeated the spiders and collected all the remaining scarlet eyes, what's left for him then?

"…Pika… Kurapika!" Leorio woke him up from his reverie. "You've been zoning out a lot since we got here, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong I was just wondering… what Sakura is going to do." Kurapika says the first thing he could think of.

"Oh that's right! That idiot isn't here!" Maya realizes.

"Does that mean she's disqualified?"

"What! That's not fair!" Hanzo yells, he doesn't really care whether when passes the exam or not but if she's disqualified that mean's that he won't be able to see his idol anymore.

"Don't worry she's not disqualified." The chairman chimes in to everyone's surprise.

"What do you mean?"

"The ones being hunted gets an hour head start to hide themselves before the hunters go after them. Sakura and Kurapika just got an early start so you can actually go and try to find he right now.

"Ok now that's not fair, why do they get a head start?"

"Because in their case, it's more than just the exam." Netero says suggestively.

_'__He knows!' _Killua and Chase both thought.

_'__Wait, does he know I'm in love with sakura?!' _Kurapika thought with surprise.

"What do you mean 'more that the-" Leorio starts but was shoved aside by Killua midsentence.

"Shouldn't you get moving already?" Killua tells Kurapika.

"Don't encourage him-" Maya chimes in, trying to give Sakura a little more time, but she was also stopped midsentence by Chase who hugs her from behind, covering her mouth with his hands.

"What are you do-" Maya manages to get out after she was able to distance Chase's hands from her mouth using brute force. However Chase once again interrupted her before she could finish her sentence.

"Killua's right, you've already got the signal to start, you should go for it!"

"Um… okay?" Kurapika responds with a little confusion in his voice. He had three days and he didn't really even care about passing this exam, what was the rush?

Killua decided to handle Kurapika's lack of physical response by pushing him towards the door.

"Killua what are you doing-"

"Trust me the sooner you find her the better." Killua says before pushing him out the room and closing the doors behind him.

_'__What was that all about?'_

* * *

(You guys probably already know but just in case ^^)

*Okaa-san = mother

**Otou-san = father

A/N: I guess this chapter was about clearing up the main stuff. I tried to make seem unexpected but yeah... sorry if it seems kinda forced but I'm not very good with words. To be honest it was better in my mind then written. Uh! I seriously need a thought transfer machine! Well ok, it may not be the best either in my mind but I feel like it's better than the version written down but you know I tried. Please feel free to write a review and if you like or favourite this story that would make me super happy! I really hope you liked this chapter :)


	9. Chapter 8: Our x Childhood x Memories

A/N: Okay so I planned to have this be the last chapter but it ended up a little to long... so now I've decided to split the last parts into two. This is the first part. Anyway I'm actually almost finished this story. I would just like to say thanks to Collymole (I can remove the name if you want) for telling me about this competition for fanfics on inkitt. It's really fired me up and I've actually gone back and edited all the chapters. I haven't replaced any of the chapters yet though because I don't really want to. I know it had a lot of mistakes but it was the original version you could say and I don't know I just want to keep it. I'm thinking of just posting it as a revised version of the story or something but hmm... I don't know, I'll decide when I've actually finished all of it :P Sorry for the rant and I hope you enjoy the story ^^

* * *

**Our x Childhood x Memories**

Kurapika decides not to think about his friend's weird behavior for very long and focuses on his mission. He's already made it this far in the exam he might as well go all the way. He also has some unresolved issues with her concerning their last mission together and his feelings towards her.

_'__Why do I have to feel this way?' _Kurapika thought.

His life would be so much better if he couldn't feel anything, well not everything, just the annoying feelings like anger, jealously, sadness… love.

Kurapika shook his head vigorously when his thoughts landed on 'love'.

_'__Ugh, why am I so bothered with that? It's not certain what I feel for her is actually love, it just the emotion that fits in best with what I am experiencing...'_

Kurapika breathes out a sigh. Why did he maybe like her that way? Was it because he was attracted to people with happy go lucky personalities like hers and Gon's? Was it because he had become a cliché and is attracted to her because of her looks and profession like Hanzo? Was it because he knows that even though she isn't serious most of the time but when something important comes up she handles it with elegance like Killua? Or was it because he had actually found someone around his age that had an all rounded knowledge and not just one topic like Leorio?

"Pff." Kurapika couldn't help the little laugh that came up. Why did every good quality he thought up about her always come back to his friends?

_'__Wait.'_

As his mind shifts to his friends, he remembers what Killua made him realize. Did he like Sakura because she reminded him about his childhood friend, Mikan?

_'__That's it all I have to do is find her and realize that she's not Mikan!' _Kurapika thought with excitement. If he can just confirm that Sakura and Mikan are two different people, maybe he can get rid of these annoying feelings for her.

Determined on confirming his new revelation and solving his problem once and for all, Kurapika eagerly begins his search. He decides to go back to the last place he knew Sakura had been, which was the town closest to the mansion. When he reaches the town, he starts off by going to all the inns and gave them a description of Sakura. At first they were all unwilling to tell him anything, saying that it was against their policy to divulge any information on their customers, but once he explains and shows them his hunter license, they spilt the beans immediately. He felt a little guilty for scaring them, but he was on a time limit and she could be a million miles away from here for all he knew.

The town was quite big so Kurapika had to go to a lot of different inns before he found the right one. It didn't help much that the inn Sakura stayed at was tucked away in the corner of the village, where not a lot of people went. Although the inn does seem to fit her personality. As he had spent more time with her, he noticed that she didn't seem to like to be in a crowd all that much despite her career. He had seen the way she would stray away from her friends and kept to herself while they chatted amongst themselves. At first he just figured that it was her way of giving her friends some alone time together as a couple, but the more he observed the more apparent the distance was and not just between her and Maya and Chase, it was everyone. At first glance it would seem she was interacting with the people around her in a carefree manner, but was she really? Sometimes it seemed like she was trying too hard and when she couldn't be bothered trying she would go silent and just smile and agree with the people around her. At times Kurapika feels that he was overthinking it, but then he would think about how his theory about her also applied to himself.

Kurapika breathes out a sigh after realizing how much time he had spent thinking about Sakura. He was supposed to be trying to figure out where she was physically not mentally.

_'__Can't wait until I confirm everything so I can stop worrying so much,' _Kurapika thought as he plans his next course of action.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sakura was currently travelling on an airship to her next destination. She was still recovering from the side effects from using her scarlet eyes so she figured it was best for her to preserve her nen as much as she could and if that meant taking an aircraft filled with people then so be it. Her scarlet eyes may go haywire again, but then again it's not like cared anymore if anyone finds out, since the people she didn't want to find out already has. She breathes out a sigh and leans back into her seat.

To say that the side effects took Sakura by surprise was an understatement. Seriously what was that reaction her body had towards her eyes? She knows that it was the first time she had ever tried combining them with her nen, but weren't the side effects a bit much? She wasn't even in that state for very long and from what she heard from Kurapika's friends, he was in that state for almost a full day and suffered for just as long as she did who only used it for about an hour.

_'__The world is so unfair,' _Sakura thought as she rests her head on the backrest of her seat. _'Not like I haven't already learnt that.' _She sighs, as she was once again as she was reminded of her past.

Seriously, she thought that she would've been done with her past by now, but then Kurapika had to show up out of the blue. Granted the reports of stolen scarlet eyes should've sent alarm bells off in her head, she never thought the culprit would've been Kurapika. Honestly, the Kurapika she knew as a child was so much more different than the one now. Back then he was reckless and carefree, but now he was all serious and super cautious. It makes her sad to see how much he had changed during their time apart. Just goes to show you what the world was capable of. This applied to her as well, although she had already been damaged a long time before he was. She could still remember how Kurapika brought her out of her dark place and reshowed her the joys of the world, which also made her feel guilty for how she was acting towards him now. But she couldn't help it, she didn't want to hurt him by telling him the truth and she didn't want to be hurt by him in return.

_~ Flashback ~_

_The elders of the village had decided that it would be best to leave Sakura in her mother's old house and to fabricate a lie about her circumstances. The other villagers had been told that her mother had accidently gotten pregnant with her and for the sake of her reputation she fled the village. Her mother then tried to raise her child on her own on the outside, but it ended up being too much for her and she used up all of her remaining strength to return her daughter to her village before she died. The father of her child was never mentioned and the other villagers didn't dare ask, in 'respect' to her mother. _

_Since Sakura was only three years old, they thought they could convince her that their story was true and that she was a full kurata. At first she refused to believe them, who would believe someone they saw murder their parents right before their eyes. However as they kept repeating it over and over again to her, the more it started to sound true. Eventually her memory surrounding her parents' death starts to become unclear and she accepts the story as the truth. That was when she started living the lie._

_For the first few years, all the villagers had pitched in to help take care of Sakura, but as she grew older and wiser in a sense, they all started leaving her. She didn't blame them. After all she was the only illegitimate child in the village. At the age of seven she had been left completely alone and essentially fend for herself. She didn't mind though. She was tired of the dirty looks they gave her when they came into her house. _

_During her spare time Sakura would make up little songs, which grew longer as her grew older. Her mother had a piano and she was able to teach herself from the books she found in the house. She wasn't able to play the full pieces she assumed her mother could play, but she was able to play almost all the chords. She knew all of them, but her hands were too small to play a few of them. However that didn't stop her from creating a tune for her songs. She found that most of her songs were slow and only needed chords anyway. Most of her songs were sad songs as she would use them to express her feelings instead of showing her feelings physically. She often wonders if the villagers ever hear her singing… if they ever hear her pain._

_When Sakura wasn't singing, she would often read the other books that her mother had left in the house. She didn't particularly like reading, but she was too scared to go outside and potentially have to interact with the people outside, so she supposed she would have to use books to tide her over until she was old enough to leave the village. It was also convenient as she learnt that her mother was an avid reader during her time in the village, so she didn't have to go to the library. Her mother's collection of books was mostly filled with storybooks, but she enjoyed reading about the adventures the characters go through. She still remembers a little about the time she was on the 'outside', as the villagers called it and she couldn't help but wonder if she could've lived the adventures in the books if she had stayed there… _

_Sakura breathes out a sigh and places the book down on the table before heading for the only windowsill that gave her a view of the village. She didn't really enjoy watching the villagers, but she finds herself unable to look away as they go about their day happily with their families. She often wonders what her life would be like if she was born into a normal family. She didn't hate her mother, but sometimes she wished that her mother had been like everyone else, so that she could be like everyone else. It was a selfish wish she knows, but at least she wouldn't feel the pain of loneliness she does now. She continues to stare blankly out the window, until a golden haired boy obstructs her view._

_"__Hi!" The boy greets her._

_At first Sakura thought the boy was talking to somebody else, but the boy continues to stare right at her. She stares back at the boy for a while until the boy takes a step closer to the window and touches the pane of glass separating them, which made her panic. Even though there was glass in between them, this was the closest she had been to someone for a long time and she didn't like it. She quickly pulls the curtains to cover up the window and sits on the ground with her back against the wall._

_'__Maybe he'll go away if I stay like this.' Sakura thought hopefully, but the boy wouldn't have it._

_After about a minute of silence, Sakura heard a knock at her door. When she doesn't respond, the knocks became louder and faster. She covers her ears with her hands, but she could still hear the knocks._

_"__Go away!" Sakura yells out in fright. To her surprise, as soon as she said it, the knocking stops. A minute goes by, then five, then ten, and still no noise was heard._

_'__Maybe he left…' Sakura thought as she crawls out from under the windowsill. She slowly starts to get up towards the window and carefully moves one of the curtains out of the way so that she could see out the window. She almost fell back when she sees the boy was still on the other side._

_"__Hi!" The boy greets her as if he was there for the first time and she hadn't she rejected him._

_"__I thought I told you to go away," Sakura says as she grips the curtain tightly._

_"__Well, I don't want to," the boy responds_

_"__Well, I do," Sakura retorts. _

_"…__Don't you feel lonely being in this house all by yourself?" The boy enquires._

_"__Wha- that's none of your business," Sakura responds and grips the curtains tighter. Who does this guy think he is, talking as if he knows the pain she was been through. "Besides I prefer to be alone," she adds._

_"__That's only because you haven't felt the joy of hanging out with people."_

_"__Hmph, like anyone would hang out with me," Sakura mumbles under her breath, but the boy hears her._

_"__But, that's why I am here," the boy announces his intentions blatantly._

_'__Yeah right,' she thought and decides to set the boy straight. "Look I don't know if you're mocking me of taking pity on me or whatever, either way I'm not interested. You should just go and hang out with some other people."_

_Sakura doesn't give the boy the chance to respond before fully closing the curtains and heading back to the table. 'I'm sure he'll leave soon,' she thought and picks up her book._

_After Sakura had finished her book, she took the time to sweep the house before going back to the window. She wanted to let the light in and she figured the boy had already left by now so she reopens the curtains. 'Seriously…' was all that came to mind when she sees that the boy was still there._

_"__You're back!" The boy says excitedly._

_"__How long have you been standing there?" Sakura asks with incredulity._

_"__How long has it been since you last talked to me?"_

_Sakura let out a sigh. "Go home," she demands._

_"__No," the boy responds. _

_"__Go home," Sakura repeats. _

_"__No."_

_"__Seriously what do you want from me?!"_

_"__I told you I want to hang out with you," The boy replies in all seriousness._

_"…__Why?" _

_"__So we can be friends," the boy simple states._

_"__Friends? Why would you want to be friends with someone like me, you've heard about me right?" _

_"__Yeah, so?"_

_"__You know my mother had me out of wedlock and now she's dead and who knows where my father is so why?! …Why?" Sakura questions the boy while on the verge of crying._

_"__What does it matter what your parents did? They're not you and besides if you think about it, if your birth turned out a different way, you wouldn't be who you are today and that would be bad." _

_"__Hmph, what could you possibly know about me," Sakura laughs at the ridiculousness of the boy's reasoning._

_"__I know that you like to read," the boy answers, which catches her off guard. "I know that you're very diligent because you clean your house everyday all by yourself. I know you're kind because you like to take care of small animals that have been injured. And I know that you're strong because you continue to go to the market even though everybody is so mean to you."_

_"…__How do you know all that?" Sakura asks hesitantly._

_"__You leave you curtains open everyday. You're practically letting the world know what you're doing everyday," the boy explains, which leaves her to give him a strange look. "Not that I watch you everyday! It's just…"_

_"__It's just what?" Sakura asks with genuine curiosity and a little amusement._

_"__It's just ever since I saw you, I wanted to get to know you more, but I couldn't build up the nerve to talk to you," the boy informs her with a light blush across his face._

_"__You're talking to me now aren't you?" Sakura points out to the boy._

_"__Well yeah, it seriously took me by surprise when you were staring at me. Normally you would look at my general direction but you would never really look at me so I got a little excited and came a bit closer… sorry if I scared you," the boy apologizes._

_"__Pff, I…I wasn't scared…" Sakura says unconvincingly, her face red from embarrassment._

_"__It's okay to be scared, I get scared sometimes too." The boy says and gives Sakura a reassuring smile._

_Somehow, hearing the boy admit that he has been afraid made Sakura feel a lot better and at ease._

_"__Sooooo, my name is Kurapika. What's yours?" Kurapika introduces himself when he sees that Sakura was starting to lighten up._

_"…__It's Mikan." Sakura introduces herself shyly. She doesn't give her last name as she had noticed that the people here did not have last names._

_"__Pff that's a weird name," Kurapika laughs._

_"__Not as weird as yours," Sakura fires back._

_Both glare at each other but soon they burst into laughter at the ridiculousness of their little fight._

_"__Well, aren't you going to come outside?" Kurapika enquires._

_Sakura walks away from the window in response and Kurapika thinks she is heading to the front door. He goes over to her front door to wait until she opens the door, but she wasn't thinking of using the door. _

_Sakura was actually going blow out the candle on her desk and close her book. Then she goes back to unlock the window then slides it wide open before she jumps out, much to Kurapika's surprise._

_"__What? It's faster this way," Sakura tells Kurapika with a smile._

_Kurapika feels his heart skip a beat, it was the first time he had ever seen her smile. All the times he had watched her from the window, she never had a smile on and it makes him truly happy to see that she could smile like that. It also made her a lot more beautiful in his opinion._

_"__What's wrong?" Sakura asks as she notices Kurapika had been staring at her for a very long time without moving._

_"__N-Nothing!" Kurapika quickly responds. "Let's go!" He grabs Sakura's hand and pulls her along, blushing furiously. _

_This action surprises Sakura, but she can't say that she didn't feel happy. 'He's warm,' she thought and smiles._

_Kurapika introduces Sakura to his friend Pairo. Unlike Kurapika, Pairo was a little more cautious of her, but he soon comes to accept her, stating, "Any friend of Kurapika is a friend of mine." _

_Time had never gone so fast for Sakura. Before she knew it, she had two of the nicest friends who had taught her a lot of things. The first thing they ever taught her was how to use her swords, which made her extremely happy, although she admits she might've taken it a little too far. Kurapika and Pairo had both started learning from a young age and she had felt that she needed to catch up so she would train anytime she was free. It wasn't long before she was able to fight them evenly and sometimes even win, much to their surprise and a little annoyance. _

_Out of the two of them, Sakura bonded more with Kurapika. He had discovered her habit of reading books and recommended all the books he liked for her to read. Honestly, she didn't want to read more books as that was basically what she had been doing for the past few years, but Kurapika seemed really excited to find someone who he could share his love of books and she couldn't turn him down. Plus she found that she didn't like it when he knew something she didn't so she may have gotten into it more than necessary. Although on the outside she plays it off as just a something she would do when she was bored, the truth was she read almost five books everyday. Kurapika also ups his game when he notices Sakura was starting to know more than him and he didn't like that, especially when he just sees her playing and eating sweets all day. Another thing Kurapika had noticed Sakura enjoyed doing a lot was singing. That was honestly what drew him to her in the first place._

* * *

_The things Kurapika had heard about Sakura from his parents and the people around him were not good. Even as a child, he could sense the hate all the adults around him felt towards her, but he never knew why. He gets that her mother wasn't married to her dad when she was born, but why does that have anything to do with her. Even if that was a fact of concern, she was one of them wasn't she? _

_The first time Kurapika saw the girl was when her parents had been assigned to take care of her. His first impression of her was like all his impressions of people. He couldn't see what was so bad about her. She seemed just like all the other kids in the village. However it was obvious through their actions that his parents thought differently and he could see she notices it too. After that encounter, he never met her face-to-face again for a while and by that he means years._

_However one day, Kurapika decides that enough was enough. By this time, he had noticed that the villagers had stopped visiting the girl all together as she was now, they supposed, self-sufficient. They weren't wrong to deem that she was capable of taking care of herself but she was still only a child. There are other important things other than being able to stay alive like having someone to talk to. Don't they even consider whether or not she would be lonely in that house all alone? Well he did, which is why he was going to visit her._

_Determined, Kurapika heads to the girl's house and walks up to her front door. He was about to knock but then he hears a piano playing from inside. He decides to switch from the door and move to the open window. There he was able to see that it was the girl that was playing the piano. He wonders where she had learnt how to play, but then he sees the piano books scattered all around her._

_'__Oh, she taught herself. That's pretty impressive.' Kurapika thought, though it did sadden him a little that she would have to teach herself._

_The piece she was playing wasn't overly complicated, just a few notes accompanied by some chords if Kurapika wasn't mistaken. He doesn't play the piano, but he has read books about them. Even though it was simple, it was really nice in his opinion. He looks up at the player and she looked very relaxed while she plays, then he sees her mouth start to open and her sweet voice starts to sing._

_"__A summer breeze comes knocking again~_

_I open up just to let in the sun~ _

_And all I hear are those fleeting tweeting notes they carry away~"_

_Kurapika listens, as the words seem to flow smoothly out of her. _

_"__A half read book I place to the side~_

_'__Hey little guy, where on earth are you from' with a smile~_

_And with me blindfolded I still know that it's 3 after noon~"_

_At first Kurapika was fully enjoying the song. It sounded so happy and fun, but then as the song continues, he realizes how wrong his first impression was._

_"__I know how simple this world it seems~_

_And yes I know, that it's me who is weird~_

_But even I have to wonder why I cant just be like the rest~_

_And far away and out of their sight~,_

_there is a house in the forest of trees hid away~_

_And can you bet there no one crazy enough to stop by~"_

_The worst part was that Kurapika soon becomes aware of the fact that the song was about her life._

_"__Don't look in their eyes!~_

_A heart so cold became ice, I guess that I wasn't able to make a friend~_

_And all I see everyday can never be much more than a thing~_

_The world outside there is made from pictures in books~_

_So please could you forgive me thinking such terrible things~_

_Will someone please let me see with my own eyes?~"_

_Kurapika couldn't help but feel guilty about the pain she was conveying through this song, though much to his relief the song does take a small turn for the good._

_"__Long long long since before I was born~_

_It's always been an inside out world but there was burning~_

_Life inside me~_

_I knew it'd never it'd never go out~_

_Hey hey, when will that knock ever come?~_

_I just cant wait to see what kind of future is out there~_

_I'll wait to hear the sound~_

_Knocking a beautiful call at my door…"_

_'__At least she has hope.' Kurapika thought as he listens to the part about having life inside her and waiting for the day someone would come visit her._

_However Kurapika's slight relief was only short lived as the girl stops playing and singing all together, she had run out of words._

_'__Eh? That can't be it!' Kurapika thought, but then he sees the girl stand up and head to the window. 'I have to hide!' Was Kurapika's immediate response and he ducks under the windowsill. He could hear the sounds of curtains being shut, signifying that she was done for the day. He goes out from under the window and stares at the now covered window. 'I guess I'll visit her next time.' Kurapika thought in a defeated state and heads home. 'I hope I get to hear the rest of the song next time…'_

_The next time Kurapika visits, he sees her reading a book instead of playing the piano. She looked so calm and serene as she flipped through the pages and he couldn't bring himself to interrupt her so he continues to watch her for a while before leaving._

_The times after that didn't go as well as Kurapika had hoped either. Whenever he comes over she would always be doing something and he just couldn't bring himself to interrupt her and just ends up watching her through the window for a while. He's seen her reading a book, cleaning, writing what he assumed were her original songs, tending to small injured animals… and playing piano while singing. Although he never heard the sing the song the first time he came here much to his disappointment. _

_This cycle of Kurapika coming to her house to visit her, giving up and watching her through the window instead became a part of his normal routing and he was okay with that. However it did shock him when one day she catches him in the act. He remembers think 'Crap, did she find out about what I've been doing?!' He then tries to confirm whether or not she does through her reaction to his greeting. When she didn't react, he took a step closer, which turned out to be a bad move and she shuts the curtains almost immediately. He wasn't about to give up on though, he had gotten this far and there was no going back. To his surprise he somehow convinces her to come out of her home and become his friend. _

* * *

_"__Hah?! You seriously did all that?!" Sakura yells in shock of Kurapika's stalker behavior._

_"__Well what else was I supposed to do?" Kurapika defends himself._

_"__Um, I don't know…knock?!" _

_"__Would you have answered if I had knocked?"_

_"…" __Sakura couldn't admit that Kurapika was right so she doesn't say anything in response, but something from Kurapika's story did catch her attention. "That song wasn't finished, but I have finished it now if you want to hear…" She shyly offers._

_"__Wait really?!" Kurapika shouts excitedly. "Yes, I want to hear it! Let's go back to your house right now so you can play it!" _

_"__Eh? I can just sing it right here."_

_"__No, you have to play it all properly."_

_Sakura really didn't know what the difference was but Kurapika seemed so into it that she couldn't bring herself to say no and lets him drag her to her house. _

_"__Can I sing now?" Sakura asks when she was seated in front of the piano._

_Kurapika nods vigorously in approval, which brings a smile to Sakura's face. She sighs and starts to play the song._

_"__A summer breeze comes knocking again~_

_I open up just to let in the sun~_

_And all I hear are those fleeting tweeting notes they carry away~_

_A half read book I place to the side~_

_'__Hey little guy, where on earth are you from' with a smile~_

_And with me blindfolded I still know that it's 3 after noon~_

_I know how simple this world it seems~_

_And yes I know, that it's me who is weird~_

_But even I have to wonder why I cant just be like the rest~_

_And far away and out of their sight~,_

_there is a house in the forest of trees hid away~_

_And can you bet there no one crazy enough to stop by~_

_Don't look in their eyes!~_

_A heart so cold became ice, I guess that I wasn't able to make a friend~_

_And all I see everyday can never be much more than a thing~_

_The world outside there is made from pictures in books~_

_So please could you forgive me thinking such terrible things~_

_Will someone please let me see with my own eyes?~_

_Long long long since before I was born~_

_It's always been an inside out world but there was burning~_

_Life inside me~_

_I knew it'd never it'd never go out~_

_Hey hey, when will that knock ever come?~_

_I just cant wait to see what kind of future is out there~_

_I'll wait to hear the sound~_

_Knocking a beautiful call at my door~"_

_Kurapika was literally on the edge of his seat when he hears the last line and sees that this time Sakura wasn't done yet._

_"__Knock Knock Knock and the sound is loud~_

_Although I'd never heard a knock upon my door so~_

_I was so scared~_

_Oh god I need to think straight~"_

_"__Hey hey, hearing a knock at my door~_

_I never thought that I would ever hear such beating~_

_And just so easily~_

_It opened to leave me exposed and alone~_

_And then finding me cowering hiding eyes away~_

_That person was of course to be surprised~_

_'__Don't look in my eyes…petrified…you'll turn to stone'~_

_I tried to speak but he just smiled back~._

_"__I was just like you, I was scared of living life~_

_so scared that I would turn completely stone~_

_But living in a world where no one is ever scared~,_

_now wouldn't that be nice?~"_

_'__Could this be about our first encounter?!' Kurapika thought happily._

_"__Now now now, from a spark inside~_

_I had imagined a new world for me to live in~_

_Where they love me I feel it ringing out now~_

_Hey hey, what does this world look like~_

_I wanna know please tell me just how then can I get there~_

_So if I'm ever lost~_

_Hey will you search for me once again?~"_

_"__Of course I will!" Kurapika jumps up and hugs her._

_"__Hah?! What are you talking about, it's just a song!" Sakura yells at Kurapika for the sudden attack, but really inside she couldn't be happier._

~ Flashback end ~

* * *

A/N: First of all disclaimer, this song doesn't belong to me I just thought it fit almost perfectly so I used it. The song is called Imagination Forest by IA and the english lyrics were written by Jubyphonic. I've actually watched the anime from where it's from :) Anyway I don't really know what to say about this chapter, it's basically just a flashback to their past and stuff but yeah I hope you guys like it ^^

PS: I'm going to finish this story really soon because I want to enter the fandom 2 competition on Inkitt which ends in 22 December to yeah I have to finish it...


	10. Chapter 9: Confessions x and x Apologies

A/N: Finally finished! Ugh I know I suck at deadlines. I was honestly able to finish this about a week ago but yeah I just couldn't bring myself to write. I don't know why I had all my ideas but I just couldn't bring myself to do it until it was literally the last minute. In the country I'm in it is already the 23rd... but luckily for whatever country inkitt is from it's not so yay I made it in time! I really don't think I'll win or place or anything but I put it up anyways. There's still 7 days after the deadline when people can still vote so I'd be super duper happy if you guys just clicked the heart :) It's under the fandom 2 contest btw. I don't mind if you guys just went there and read it though. It's the edited version so it's a little different from the one here although this chapter is the same and maybe the one before this but anyone I hope you like this chapter and sorry if it's a little rushed.

* * *

Chapter 8: Confessions x and x Apologies

The information the innkeeper had given Kurapika hadn't been as helpful as he would've hoped. All he got was that she had wanted to get on an airship to an undisclosed location and that she asked them where the nearest airport was. So now he was at the airport they had told her to go to with completely no idea which one she took. He had tried asking the staff, but even when he showed them their hunter license, they wouldn't tell him as they have had plenty of hunters using their transport services and so there was an agreement of silence in accordance to any hunter's destination.

Kurapika slumps down into one of the chairs in the airport after being rejected from the receptionists. _'Now what am I going to do? Should I just take a guess and pray it's the right one?' _Kurapika thought, but immediately throws that idea away as it wasn't only a huge stupid gamble, but it would be useless if he didn't know exactly where she was going. From what he had found out, it had been about a day since she left the inn, which is more than enough time to come to this airport, get on an airship, get off and he doubts that where the airship stopped was her exact destination.

"Hey there," a voice from behind him calls out.

_'__Oh no.' _Kurapika thought as he recognized that voice immediately. "Hisoka, what are you doing here?"

"Well since I killed my partner, I was automatically disqualified so now I have some free time on my hands," Hisoka explains a little too happily in Kurapika's opinion.

"And what does that have to do with me?"

"What if I told you I know where you partner is?"

"You know where Sakura is?!" Kurapika immediately stands up and questions Hisoka.

"Well, I have quite a big hunch," Hisoka replies and hands Kurapika a slip of paper.

Kurapika takes the paper and it turns out to be an airship ticket.

"What's the catch?" Kurapika asks. He was a little dubious of the fact that Hisoka would help him without wanting anything in return.

"No catch, I just want to see how it turns out," Hisoka says with a seemingly innocent tone.

Kurapika was definitely wary of Hisoka's response, but he was getting a free ticket to where Sakura was so who was he to complain. "Can you give me a more specific location," he enquires, as the ticket would only take him to a general area.

"Sorry, but it's your hunt," Hisoka responds with a smile.

Kurapika really wanted Hisoka to tell him Sakura's location, but his pride wouldn't let him. Hisoka was right this was his hunt and no one else's.

"Have a safe trip," Hisoka tells him when his flight was called.

Kurapika ignores him and boards the ship.

_'__I wonder if this ship will actually take me to where Sakura is.' _Kurapika thought with dread as he realizes that he had just trusted Hisoka with no evidence that he actually knew where Sakura was. Kurapika breathes out a sigh. _'Well it's too late now.' _The ship he was riding on takes almost half a day to reach his destination. He wouldn't have time to board another airship if he wanted to make the three-day mark.

* * *

Meanwhile Sakura had already got off the airship and was heading towards her destination. To be honest, she didn't really want to go there, but she has decided that it was time to get some closure.

_'__I wonder if Kurapika has been here since then,' _Sakura thought. He probably has, after all it was his home…

It wasn't long before Sakura reaches the Lusko province.

_'__I hope I still know the way…' _Sakura thought as she proceeds to go into the forest.

Sakura's only attempt to find the village was when she was three with her parents so she wasn't very confident. Especially since the first time didn't end so well and she had been trying her best to block out the memory. Well, it's not like her way out of the village to the outside world went as smooth either… She shudders as she remembers how she was able to leave, she wouldn't have even dreamed that she was going to go back willingly, though that was the thought back when they were still alive. When she had found out that they had been massacred, she honestly didn't know how to feel. They didn't treat her all that great, they were still technically her family, but she can say that a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She was finally free.

After walking for a while, trying her best to follow the path she had taken the last time, Sakura comes upon what seemed to be a tombstone. From what she could make out, a cross had been etched into the rock and underneath was a few words, which she decides to read out loud.

"Here lies a mother, a father and…a daughter " Sakura pauses and re-reads the next part over and over again in her mind, making sure she read it correctly.

"Those jackasses killed me off!" Sakura shouts in disbelief, but well she can't really say she didn't expect something like that. However she was genuinely surprised at the fact that they were kind enough to give her family a gravestone. Although it was probably just to ease their guilt. Sakura breathes out a sigh and keeps on moving.

From there on out she would be walking blindly into the forest, but she wasn't going to let this lower her determination.

_'__I can do this. I can get there and then I can finally leave this behind me for good.'_

It turned out that the gravestone was actually very close to the village. Sakura should be happy right now, but she couldn't stop the tears from streaming down her face. Her mother was so close, so close to returning to her home only to be killed in front of the entrance.

_'__I can't believe I was naïve enough to think they were decent human beings!' _Sakura thought angrily, but no matter how much regret she felt, the past can't be altered and the scars will never disappear.

* * *

Whilst Sakura was on her way into the village, the airship lands and Kurapika quickly takes in his surroundings. It wasn't long until he realizes where he was.

_'__Don't tell me...' _Kurapika thought as his mind immediately thinks of one place, his village. He didn't know what else would attract Sakura's attention, but she couldn't possibly know where the village. But then again, his village's location wasn't so secret now like the past and she was very knowledgeable. _'Does she feel guilty…' _He thought with a little guilt. From what he had gathered from the past couple of weeks about Sakura is that she was very sensitive to the idea of death and her had practically thrown her into a rather uncomfortable situation when he brought her along to find the scarlet eyes for the previous phase. What's more is the fact that he got careless and lost his fight and he knew she must've had to get the eyes herself and carry it with her. The pair of floating red eyes must've affected her pretty bad considering her reaction to his scarlet eyes that were still inside his head.

_'__I guess I can't really do anything about it now.' _Kurapika resigns and heads to the village. There is a part of him that wants his theory to be wrong but there was just something in him that told him that Sakura was definitely there.

It didn't take Kurapika long at all to reach his village. Even after all the time that he had been away, he still knew that forest like the back of his hand. Upon entering the village, there was no sign of Sakura at all. He starts to go deeper into the village to look for her and as he does, the memories just come flooding back to him. He could still remember how his village used to look like and the people who lived in each of the houses. He remembers his house and Pairo's house, but some reason his legs bring him to a different house.

_'__This is…' _Kurapika thought as he recalls the house in front of him. This house was a little different from the rest. It was a little further away from the other houses and he vividly remembers to person who lived in that house, which was why it was sad to see it in shambles although it wasn't as bad as the rest of the village, which was a little odd. He can see that it had been hit and there were definitely a number of bloodstains on the house, but he was surprised to see how still intact it was compared to the other houses.

Unbeknownst to Kurapika, Sakura was in the very house he was currently staring at.

_'__Crap, how did he know I was here?!' _Sakura panics as she sees that Kurapika was right outside the door and she definitely did not want him to find her here. _'I know! I'll just sneak out the back window and run as far away as I possibly can.' _Sakura thought and would've succeeded in her escape if not for the coffee table in front of her. In her flustered state she completely misses it and bumps right into it and everything on the table falls off.

**Crash!**

Kurapika hears the loud noise from inside the house and immediately runs up to the door and opens the door to find Sakura crouching down on the floor clutching her sore leg.

"Sakura?!" Kurapika yells out with a little surprise, although he sort of had a feeling she would be there, it was still surreal actually seeing her there in front of him.

"Hey Kurapika, what are you doing here?" Sakura responds in a normal tone, even though inside she was freaking out inside.

"What am I doing here, what are you-" Kurapika starts only to remember that he already knew the answer. "Look I know you feel bad about the scarlet eyes thing but that doesn't mean you have to visit this village to apologize." Kurapika tells Sakura, who just looks back in utter confusion.

"What?"

"I mean I know you feel like you've disrespected the Kurata clan by taking the scarlet eyes, but I did ask you and I'm a kurata so it's okay," Kurapika attempts to clarify.

Sakura gets what Kurapika was trying to say and is relieved to her that he was way off target to the reason for why she was here, but a little part of her still feels like it had just been shot knowing that Kurapika still doesn't remember her.

"Although I would appreciate it if you didn't enter other people's homes without permission."

_'__Eh?' _Kurapika words catch Sakura off guard.

"Just because they're gone doesn't mean it's suddenly okay for anyone to enter," Kurapika continues, which irritates Sakura.

_'__What the hell!' _Sakura thought angrily, but she decides that it's best not to say something. That was until she heard the next thing Kurapika says.

"It belonged to a very special friend of mine," Kurapika states, not knowing what this once sentence did to Sakura.

"You're unbelievable." Sakura says with her head down and bangs covering her eyes. She didn't know why, but all the emotions she had been keeping deep inside her were just starting to spill out.

"…What do you mean?" Kurapika says, completely lost.

"Do you really know who this house belongs to?" Sakura questions him.

"I told you, it belonged to a friend of mine," Kurapika answers confused.

"Describe them to me," Sakura demands.

"Hah?"

"I said describe them."

"Why do I have to do that? It doesn't concern you." Kurapika responds a little angrily and receives only silence from Sakura.

Kurapika remains silent as well and the awkward silence continues for a while until Sakura speaks again.

"…Get out," Sakura tells Kurapika in a quiet voice.

"What?" Kurapika asks, as he couldn't quite catch what Sakura had said.

"I said get out!" Sakura bursts out in anger, which made Kurapika angry.

"What makes you think you can-"

"Because this is my house!" Sakura shouts, she didn't care if he found out anymore. Honestly enough was enough, why did she have to shoulder this burden. It was clear that Kurapika didn't even care about her. He was just like the others that had caused her so much pain.

Kurapika was about to yell back at Sakura until he sees her eyes, which had changed colour during her outburst and that's when it finally dawns on him.

"…Mikan?" Kurapika calls out hesitantly and when he receives no response he reaches out to her only to receive a harsh rejection.

"Don't touch me!" Sakura smacks Kurapika's hand away.

"Look I'm sorry but you should've told me," Kurapika apologizes, but he was a little annoyed that for the fact the Sakura knew who he was and didn't tell him who she really was.

"I should've told you?" Sakura says in disbelief. "You're saying I should've told you?!"

Kurapika was about to say something back, but Sakura wasn't done.

"Did you know that even before you told me your name, I knew exactly who you were just by looking at you, but you didn't? Did you know how much it hurt during this time when there were so many opportunities for you to figure out who I was and yet you completely cast them aside? Did you know how much of me was crushed when you told me that I needed your permission to enter my own house?! I thought we were friends! I thought you actually cared about me! But I guess you're just like those other scumbags."

"Okay I think that's going to far!"

"Too far? Too far?! Do you know what's really to far?! Murdering one of your own and her husband just because he was an outsider! Taking in and lying to their daughter only to kill her too when she eventually found out the truth!"

"Mik-"

"Don't you even dare say my name! I don't want to hear you say the only thing my parents could give me!" Sakura shuts Kurapika down and that's when she really began to break and spill out everything that she had been bottling up inside. "It's so frustrating! I thought that if I put the past behind me and just pretended that it never existed who make me happy and honestly it did. I met Maya and Chase and became a hunter and I travelled the world and ate all the sweets I wanted and just when I thought I was finally done, you appeared and… I was overcome with so much joy. Even when you didn't recognize me, I thought that it was for the best because I didn't want to deal with that part of me ever again. I didn't want to go through that pain again yet it felt like a small part of me dies every time I saw that you only saw me as just another participant and I don't know why! Why do I feel this way… why can't I forget you…" Her eyes start to change back as her anger was overtaken by the immense sadness she had tried her best to conceal.

To say that this overload of information shocked Kurapika was an utter understatement and the only thing he could do was go up and hug Sakura.

"I'm sorry. I know that it won't make up for it but I just want you to know that I'm really sorry," Kurapika apologizes with complete sincerity. This surprises Sakura but she just hugs him back and cries her heart out.

* * *

The next day both Kurapika and Sakura arrive back at the exam site. The airship ride back was a silent one. Kurapika was still digesting all the things Sakura had said and Sakura slept through most of the flight. It had been a while since she expressed her genuine emotions and it really tired her out. Neither of them had said anything to the other since the whole confession in the village and both honestly had no idea how long this silence was going to last, but it looks like they didn't need to solve it themselves.

"Kurapika! Sakura!" Gon calls out to them as they enter the building and it wasn't just him there. Killua, Leorio, Hanzo, Maya and Chase were all there as well.

"Sakura! Where the hell have you been?!" Maya shouts at Sakura with more concern than anger.

"Um… just you know… places," Sakura says sheepishly.

"Sak-"

"So how did it go?" Chase interrupts Maya and asks Sakura.

"Did you tell him you were a Kurata?" Killua joins in.

"Wait, what?!" Leorio yells out before Sakura could answer.

"What is he talking about?" Maya questions Sakura.

"Um… can we not talk about this now?" Sakura responds as the questioning stares were overwhelming her.

Everyone didn't want to back off but they could tell she really didn't want to tell them so they stopped. Besides seeing as how Kurapika wasn't shocked at the mention of her being a kurata, she must've told him.

"That was a little mean of you changing your name though," Killua says.

"Huh? Who told you I changed my name?" Sakura tilts her head in confusion.

"Well your name now is Sakura and before it was… Mikan or something right?"

"Um, well they're both my names. Mikan's my first name and Sakura is my second," Sakura states.

"This is the first time I heard about this!" Maya announces a little annoyed to hear that she didn't even know her best friend's first name.

"Eh, I thought you knew?"

"Well I didn't."

Sakura thinks back to when she and Maya first met and realizes why Maya didn't know her first name. "Oh, I remember now. The first time we met, you guessed my name was Sakura from my hair colour."

"Why didn't you correct me?"

"But you were technically right and you seemed to happy so I couldn't bring myself to tell you that it was only half of my name and I guess as time went on I just forgot about it haha…" Sakura laughs it off and receives a glare from Maya.

"Oh… so it was your fault," Killua says.

"What do you mean it's my fault?!"

As Sakura watches them bicker, she couldn't help but laugh at the simplicity of the fight. After all the drama she went through with Kurapika she really needed something like this to lift her spirits.

Sakura looks over to Kurapika and sees that he was looking back at her with a gentle smile. She quickly whips her head back around, a light blush coats her cheeks. Just because Kurapika now knows that they were childhood friends and had sincerely apologized to her doesn't mean that she would just automatically go back to the way things were with him. Out of the corner of her eye she could still see him smiling at her and her blush deepens.

_'__Ugh, what's wrong with my heart today…'_

* * *

A/N: Welp that's the end of the story or is it... well it's done for now. I might write a sequel in the future but honestly I haven't really got much yet so I'm waiting for hunter x hunter to be updated so I can get extra stuff to work with but yeah I'm really happy I finished this story before the end of the year! Thank you for putting up with me and I really appreciate the people who take the time to read my story. I know my writing needs a lot of work but I hope you enjoyed it and I guess this is goodbye :)

PS: If you didn't see at the top, the edited version of this story is on inkitt so if you want to read that you can go there and uh... maybe vote for me... haha it's okay if you don't but I'm not putting the edited version up on here yet because I might change a few things in the last chapters, which I couldn't do because I suck at having deadlines...

Tiny edit: I just saw a fandom 3 contest up on inkitt so yeah... I entered this story there too. I don't know if it's allowed since I entered in the fandom 2 contest but might as well right... haha... I'm sorry for being annoying it's just my first contest... well I guess my second... I don't even know but I'm really excited! It's stupid to be this excited I know but I just am. Is it wrong for me to say I want to win or even just place ^^?


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